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POEMS 

OF 

PERSONALITY 

SECOND SERIES 

REGINALD C. ROBBINS 




" to speak beyond the hook " 



CAMBRIDGE 

lIDrinteu at tEPtie Htoersftoe l^xt^^ 

1909 






COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY REGINALD CHAUNCEY ROBBINS 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 



I WlAY 29 '^'^^^ 



ERRATA 

POEMS OF PERSONALITY [FIRST SERIES) 

ist, 2nd, and 3rd editions — 
Page ^2, line 12 \ 

and >- for Gi^eh read Ga:(^a. 

Page ^^, line 3 ) 

ist and 2nd editions only — 
Page 1 16, line 8 — for the read zw. 

ist edition only — 
Page 80, line i — for relea read release. 



CONTENTS 

CONFUCIUS 3 

HERACLITUS 9 

.CSCHYLUS 18 

PARMENIDES 24 

PHIDIAS 29 

EURIPIDES . 38 

SOCRATES 45 

SOPHOCLES 54 

PLATO 62 

ARISTOTLE 73 

ASOKA 86 

PAUL 91 

PETER 100 

CONSTANTINE 104 

ATHANASIUS no 

AUGUSTINE 117 

iii 



CONTENTS 

AVERROES 123 

AQUINAS 131 

LUTHER 143 

LOYOLA 149 

XAVIER 155 

PALESTRINA 162 

AKBAR 168 

SHAKESPEAR 174 

DESCARTES 180 

SPINOZA 188 

KANT 197 

MRS. BROWNING 213 

CARLYLE 215 



IV 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

SECOND SERIES 



CONFUCIUS 

Alack ! down from the Golden Years of Kings 
Perfect in every enterprise of life 
And Sages calm in benison of Shang-te, 
Unto the turmoil of these latter days, 
This modern-made forgetfulness of earth, 
What lapse, degeneration ! And the fall 
Continues with the passing of the days ; 
And Princes lift the sword against their kind, 
And none are Kings. And no superior man 
Is counsellor ; nor folk obedient 
Anywhere bear in mind the Rule of Shun, 
Nor guide their ways by the Proprieties, 
Nor sacrifice by ceremonial 
Exact, nor regulate by music-mood 
Nor holy ode, conduct and character. 
But all, both high and low, demand new modes 
Of turmoil, new disorder ; whilst this sun 
Rises and sets, and stars upon their course 
Move nightly, marking our disease and death. 
I have made study of the Golden Years, 
Their lore of order and their ways of worth 
Perfect, plain-fashion 'd ; whence am well aware 
3 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

How, might but men return unto those laws 
Of firm obedience in both home and State, 
Of wise command, submission questionless. 
By king or husband, subject, yea, or wife. 
Then might the rebel or the concubine 
Garrulous, lustful, be unknown among us ; 
And government be peaceful, taxes just, 
And many sons be born to reverence 
Both parents equally. Hence would I teach 
This Middle Kingdom, centre of the skies, 
With sure authority the method of them 
Celestial, absolute ; that so might men 
Re-live the ancient dignity of life, 
And stand re-born as on the pristine earth 
And be of Golden Years, or slaves or kings. 
I am so fain to teach, yet nowhere find 
Right opportunity ; but fear my faith 
Will fade unheard when death o'ertaketh me 
(My creed, of destiny too like mine own !) 
And none after myself be bless'd to know — 
For what disciple can preserve a truth 
Without example in my private life 
Which some successful government alone 
Under my counsel could afford to him ? — 
4 



CONFUCIUS 

None bless'd to know the truth establish 'd by 
The fair performance of the Golden Kings. 

'Sooth, in these days of turbid insolence 
When nought is order'd in authority, 
But hearts are bruised and broken with despair 
Of learning each some novelty to suit 
The strain and stress of untoward circumstance, 
Stands this my novelty and my despair 
That nowhere men may heed the precept wise, 
The proof irrefutable which I tell them 
Glean'd of the wisdom of the greater age 
Before all things grew old and tottering. 
And I myself grow old and tottering 
To leave no high example of success, 
Who feel my very faith a failure here 
Where few believe ; and I, alone of all 
Wise in the sanction of authority, 
Wield no authority — though yet, by grace 
Of circumstance, set for the space of moons 
Over this province-government to try 
The fresh enforcement of the earlier ways. 
Nor will this folk obey, nor will he heed 
Whose counsellor by compact I became. 
5 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

But all goes on from bad to worse by want 
Of that antique respect and reverence 
Which record of the wisdom-ways of Kings 
Abundantly reveals, but is not now. 
How shall I bear to go into my grave 
A savior still unseen in public power, 
A wealth of wisdom, doom'd as ignorance 
To die and nevermore be known of men 
By fair performance as of Golden Kings ? 

Ah ! who could quench the fervor of our crime ? 

Could Shun himself, fallen on latter days, 

Have transform'd earth to heaven, made mankind, 

Shang-te ? 
Though every man perchance be good at heart. 
Born good ; yet more than all the Sages' selves 
Were needed to make perfect man born, both, 
And bred to lust and greed by age mature. 
As I believed and labor'd, so might Shun ; 
And as I fail'd, so haply would Shun fail, 
Whose faith, pride, wisdom were scarce more than mine ! 
Scarce more than mine ! And as Shun stands to-day 
Criterion of perfection, so may I 
To future ages, if no fault 's confess'd, 

6 



CONFUCIUS 

Stand model and exemplar, teaching men 
The way of me, Kung-fu-tze, as of them 
The earlier Sages — ay, and serve mankind I 
For where is opportunity to help. 
There pride is justified ; and unto pride 
With claim of self-success cleaves reverence ; 
And where is reverence there all is saved ; 
And saviorhood proves the superior man ! — 
Yet from this pitiful experience 
Of practical failure I perforce resign. 
Throw down the staff of office and retire 
To some sole hermitage to meditate 
The better fortune of the Golden Days 
When wisdom was, a better fortune proven 
By mine experience of modern life 
So purposeless without authority. 
So warp'd and thwarted of accomplishment 
For want of any ancient self-restraint 
And plain obedience to command of Kings. 
For where there is not any self-restraint 
There nought is regulated ; and where nought 
Is regulated there no government 
Exists worth preservation ; and where earth 
Is nowise govern'd no superior man 
7 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Can safely intervene to found the State. 

I shall abandon service publicly 

And give myself to setting forth in script 

The evils annall'd of their Springs, their Autumns, 

Which are not years of singleness and truth. 

By my book be I judged ; but be forgot 

As conservator crazed who cried reform 

Yet could not quench the fervor of our crime, 

Could not bring back the Golden Years of Kings ! - 

Was it not fault of mine, to strive beyond 
All possibility of world-success ? 
Was not crime mine that I defied our fate, 
Sought to turn backward on earth's destiny 
Which goeth ever onward though we fall ? 
Which if we thwart we must deserve to fall ; 
Which if we foster yields our life's success. 
And thereby proves itself desirable, 
More perfect than the Ceremonials 
Of Shun, more sweet than old Proprieties ? — 
Yet, be mine Annals as mine eloquence 
Confident still of favor with the skies ! 



HERACLITUS 

Behold the world as man perceiveth it 
(O world ! thou source of every thought of truth !) 
Call'd fire, or water, earth or any name 
For somewhat static, moveless, even though man 
Himself be judge of it that flux be all ! 
Behold the world, as though perception might be 
Some passive permanence, some plethora 
Of recognition mutually inane. 
Devoid of meaning, imperceptible 
Because all-unimpressive ! Yet mine arm 
Before mine eyes passeth from point to point 
Athwart yon landscape (ay, o'er Ephesos, 
Artemis' precinct !) ; and by motion proveth 
A relativity dynamic 'twixt 
My sight and world as, still within them both, 
Its sweep impresseth alterance on the face 
Of the world ; and by its passage o'er the world 
Becomes unlike itself, mine arm no more 
As erst, but arm and world at once made new 
And by their novelty impressing on me 
Flux, flux, and flux unto the end of time. 
Why then denominate or world or water 
9 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Or fire or earth or arm with any name 

Intended to denote a permanence, 

Implying some perception unimpress'd 

And hence impossible ? Truth were not so. 

And therefore fire and earth as men conceive them 

Are not. But flux are all things that we know ; 

And * world ' or * life ' names but the flux as whole. 

The wonder is not, therefore, of the way 

Life floweth and is absolved within itself 

With every fresh desire — for how impress 

Perception save by impact ; and how else 

Might motion be, save by the alterance 

Unending, irremediable of time ? 

The wonder is not of the way we pass, 

Are born and are forgotten with the dead. 

Rather were alterance, the flux of change 

World's axiom, and physics every way 

(The Upward and the Downward Burning both) 

Built in our understanding how we move 

And breathe and face the morrow as we must. 

Necessity, for flux. And what we know 

For necessary ne'er bemarvelleth. 

The wonder, rather, that we seem to stay ; 

10 



HERACLITUS 

Are here, one moment ; there, at other while ; 
'Stablish'd and resting as we somehow seem. 
The wonder, so, that any element — 
Or very fire, or water, or dull earth — 
Remaineth very fire, water, earth. 
And not another ; how each element 
Seems untransmutive, hath identity 
Whether it be or not-be, though each thing 
Can neither be nor not-be, but (becoming !) 
In some sort must amalgamate with each 
And every other, as the law of all 
Requires, whose fundament is alterance ! 
From this dilemma there were no appeal 
To proof of gods. The gods (if gods there be !) 
Either abiding still beyond space, time, 
And sharing not in motion ; or else wise 
Being but motions of the myriad world 
Call'd archetypal, alterance none the less ! 
And either way were they beyond appeal — 
For, being unmotion'd, were they nought to point 
This paradox of stillness seemingly ; 
Or, being (as needs were, were they anywise !) 
Themselves but movements of the world at large, 
Were they but type and formula indeed 
II 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of this my proposition, not themselves 
Solutions of the mighty mystery ! 
For how were Zeus, a motion, seeming Zeus 
Through countless ages ; Artemis herself. 
The symbol of life-lapse by local creed, 
Continuously Artemis, nought else ? 
Gods, elements or men, beasts, trees, or all 
Alike, true chaos of unceasing flux. 
Yet paradoxically Zeus, earth, fire, 
Artemis, air, oak, Herakleitos, each ! 

Lo ! were it, by some possibility, 

A bare necessity beyond escape 

That somewhat, still unchanging, lurks within 

The maelstrom of the fluxion ; gives a name 

To each momentum ; that beyond the breath 

Of birth-in-death affords identity 

To recognition ? Were it, that I take 

An hidden axiom and reluctantly 

Accept a fundament occult till now ? 

Urge I not every hour that what we see 

For bare necessity were understood 

Beyond necessity to understand ? 

And prove I not both terms of axiom — 

12 



HERACLITUS 

The status, as the fluxion — equally 
Prime datum of the world wherein we move ? 
The movement and the mover ! — Yet wherein 
Were paradox precluded, that we say : 
I move, Zeus moveth ; earth is earth ; and water 
Water ; as fire, fire though it melt 
And pass in every flickering ? How might Zeus 
Be to his motion, I unto mine arm's 
Translation show related, when * itself * 
Must be, as by hypothesis, without 
Share in self-passage nor defined by change 
Of relativity to all things else — 
Though of itself nought if it may not move ? 
And what of alterance then when passage-fact 
Precludes intrinsic inference of aught 
Moveless, unpassing ? If relation lie 
In truth 'twixt state and state, and such we call 
Motion ; yet what, within such mystic stream, 
The very self-distinctiveness of flux 
From each self-state as state, which cannot be 
As state determinate of passingness 
Which could demark it but impermanently 
(Save passingness be endless emptiness !) 
And so transform it into flux anew ? 
13 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

If, as indeed I take the novel truth, 
There be unceasingness within our flow 
(Ha ! were it that very flow's unceasingness 
Which by non-termination yields to each 
Moment and aspect an enduringness 
Inherent only for the fluxion's self 
Its universalness of reference, 
And cheats us with supposed identity 
Of many moments joint-establishing ! ) 
Whereby such fluxion shows distinctively 
For alterance (requiring permanence 
For standard and criterion !) — what, within 
Such duplex datum of our universe. 
Can thus, with appeal to any sanity, 
Be said of such relationship as lies 
'Twixt alterance and change-nonentity. 
Whether itself were fluxional or no ? 
And if itself 's shown static — what were then 
Its own relationship, as status, toward 
The primal fluxion — secondary crux 
Interminably self-repetitive 
In logic-regress beyond man's conceit ? 
I pause before such paradox, whose terms 
Now first confront me among sons of men, 
14 



HERACLITUS 

Now first demand solution. Future years 
Shall haply see solution ; haply find 
The task impossible, to rectify 
Such rift within Necessity, the One ! — 

t 
Yet not the same task, not such paradox 

Precise as now appalls me among men 

The first and therefore last, as all truths flow : 

Necessity, but passingness writ large, 

Like world without or pause or permanency 

(So reason tells, interpreter of sense 

In just perception of duplexity) 

Save as we name it so, we know not wherefore. 

And seize the simulacrum to explain 

The shown reality — and call it Same, ^ 

Though unto every thought respectively 

A different necessity-of- truth ! 

To none my same dilemma, though the name 

Of Herakleitos' fluxion aye endure ! 

Some task made different by the lapse of time, 

By newer information, newer needs 

Of understanding truth-necessity, ^ 

Yet seeming-same within their universe 

Of logic-wrought procedure : whereunto 

15 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Shall many minds attain, for whom my fame 
Means nought than early rumor, who shall stand 
Confronting, seemingly as I confront 
This paradox. And many shall attempt 
Evasion, or delude with trickery. 
For some shall say : The paradox disproves 
AH possibility of movement made — 
For how can somewhat pass and yet be same ? — 
Forgetful how this motion of my hand, 
Though at each instant status in itself 
(As we imagine instance cognizable !) 
Yet passes, point to point, perceptibly, 
And proves unto perception, truth's best judge, 
This wonder-universe of earth, of water, 
Fire and Ephesos within my sight. 
Known thus for motion all though each bear name — 
Known for perceivers each (not plethoras 
Of blank passivity !) beyond all doubt 
Even as I (ha ! might the changeless I 
Resolve all paradox, itself that knows 
Continuously through the change of each 
Perception, feeling on interminably 
Beyond and through each moment, who can say .?), 
Yea, even as I — and proving thus my life 
i6 



HERACLITUS 

Impression'd of a world. — And some shall cheat 
Themselves, to doubt perception-reasoning 
And base truth in denial ! Yet, O world, 
Can any, sane, deny truth were of thee ? 



17 



^SCHYLUS 

They murmur, then, that I (as they demur) 

Unmask the Mysteries, declare to men 

Matters beyond the scope of tragedy, 

From speech taboo'd, perchance precluded from 

Mere human understanding ? Let them rail ! 

What garland could be grander on the brows 

Of victory than this protestation ? Who 

Might flatter to the clouds this poetry. 

As he who calls my name, forsooth, accursed 

For blasphemy, revealing sacred things ? 

So much for them, the mob, who only praise 

When most denouncing. Them I thank with scorn. 

Them, too, I thank that they have subtlier still 
Suggested to imagination much 
Toward some yet greater work than they deplore ! 
Some vision of a gnarl'd protagonist 
(As some bolt-stricken oak in Tempe's vale) 
Prometheus-like, snatching from Zeus for men 
The swift fire-secret, and for punishment 
(Even as the oak by disembowelling) 
Suffering vast maltreatment, though at soul 
i8 



>ESCHYLUS 

But more confirmed in mighty righteousness 
By each injustice. Only let the mob 
Threat but my life on Areopagos, 
Torment me round with clamor — that my heart 
Be wrath-inflamed to rigor — and I Ml make 
The master-piece : the Master-Hero Bound 
Defiant and triumphant : Gods and all 
Belittled by the unswerved suffering Man — 
The suffering Man unswerved, the soul at last 
Of tragedy and heart of holiest song 
Triumphant by distress over all Gods ! 
The master-music : though the veil be rent ; 
And high Olympos, mere earth-mount at last, 
Cast down Zeus' throne before the feet of men, 
Doff every vestige of eternal snow — 
And flower with thyme and honey ; to the taste 
Of every soul a liberation, though 
Come sorrow with responsibility, 
Come suffering with the fresh awakening : 
The pain of parting from the father-care 
Of God Olympian, seen at last in truth 
A tyranny and nobly cast aside ! 
Such my Prometheus. — Let them rail at that 
(Come Dionysia-season) an they will I 
19 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

For me an inspiration ; and for them 
Boar-baiting, bull-bewildering as with goads ; 
Prometheus shall be : man exposing all 
(The sacredest, most holily taboo'd, 
The most mysterious) to the sight of man 
And men's instruction ; that an holier truth 
(That secret of the breast Promethean, 
The doom of Zeus for all his tyranny !) 
Rise from the ashes and establish us 
In sacredness if not in mystery. 
In consecration and an open heart. 

And yet — might any Order be not Zeus, 

He of the Law ? Is there a law beyond 

Law's full impersonation ? And if such 

There seem (those Moirai, dread Eumenides 

Of myth), swells not the name and thought call'd Zeus 

To fill the perfected requirement ? 

Might I, save for some Areopagos 

Protective from the momentary spite 

Of mobs impulsive, with impunity 

Assail the old-time myth-authorities ; 

Save, as I say, for force conservative. 

The middle-source of justice, tyrant still 

20 



>ESCHYLUS 

Over the reckless demos-novelty ? 

Shall I be wrath demotic tearing down 

All institution, when but Institute 

Alone gives warrant of free thought and speech ? 

Prometheus hath taken indeed a shape 

Such as my wrathful mood against the mob 

Of archaists impell'd, such as my right 

To mouth deep-searching and wild-winged words 

Demanded in assertion ; but shall mine 

Half-misconception bide as Titan bound, 

Binding mine art, cramping mine utterance still 

To mere defiance and self-petulance 

Protestive, when to act constructively, 

Upbuilding and establishing, were best ; 

And best were to abide with justice yet 

Staunch partisan of Zeus, who, though he grow 

A greater Zeus, were Areopagite 

Still, an establish'd custom from the first ? 

It is because I did accept the myth 

Erroneously indicating Zeus 

For interloper that I failed to feel 

Futurity for his ; but now I see 

The Zeus-succession but the Chronos-rule 

From first, the Zeus-anticipation in 

21 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The old pre-Titan forcefulness. And thus 

Be there some reconciliation found 

At last, some yielding of rigidity 

(Even as the oak, shear 'd of the lightning-blast, 

May skyward rear anew some crown of green 

And the blue shine down and be but heaven the more!) ; 

Some Zeus-approximation of the man 

Roused to a wider-eyed austerity 

Of ripe world-insight recognizing doom 

For just and pardon in humility ; 

Some earth-approximation of the God, 

Humaner by the conquest ! That my tongue 

Shall sing the man's unbinding and his end 

In stalwart service 'neath authority 

As interceder for the human race : 

The Fire-Bearer, Master-Foresight Freed — 

Whose cult obtains throughout our Attika. 

And thus shall this my trilogy enhance 
The potence of that wise authority 
Over Athenai exercised by them 
On whose defence I must at last rely 
For privilege to speak whilst speak I must ! 
Thus shall the Gods not unassisted sway 

22 



iCSCHYLUS 

Athenai's destinies, but by my song 
Of songs renew authority outworn 
Over the demos ; and these archaists, 
Wholly unjustified of blasphemy, 
Yet win by will of mine and with me stand 
Leaders conservative to teach themselves 
How truest reverence springs in freest thought, 
In freest speech anent the truths of earth ; 
The clear conviction (not the skeptic rant) 
Found in most-revelation — trusting Zeus 
To test of any searching, any proof ; 
Nor veird in jugglery of dark taboo. — 
*T is thus that I reveal the Mysteries, 
Unmasking with my mask the sacred things ! 



23 



PARMENIDES 

Although mine Elea be a little town 
Unlike Athenai, yet the wide world all 
Is nowise larger than her atomy — 
Not even Athenai, like although unlike : 
This strange vast city whereto mine old-age 
Hath come to wonder at her ways of men. 
For, were aught other than another thing 
(Or seas or men or cities equally), 
Were then nonentity between their bounds 
*Soe'er approximate though they might be. 
And therefore in no rational intent 
Can there be here Athenai, there afar 
Elea, though the journey 1 have made — 
Ah I dogma blessed to the wanderer 
For whom an Elea, though a little town. 
Is birthplace; home-beloved, being an hearth ! 
In sooth, Athenai is but still a town, 
Yet of herself, so far as she hath truth 
Of any being, is she as the world : 
And I yet in that Elea, though I came 
O'er leagues of purple ocean to be here, 
24 



PARMENIDES 

And there no longer. Thus indeed I fail 
Defeat the law of reason. In my heart 
All is as Elea though I dwell not there, 
Though if in space and time I seem at least 
Here present. Elea was a little town ; 
Yet in herself teacheth the truth of things ! 

How then explain the semblance that I came 
Even from Elea to arrive at last 
After such leagues of laboring overseas 
In strange Athenai ? How indoctrinate 
This contrast, to the clarity of truth ? 
How reconcile this lorn nostalgia 
Of him the old man wandering, lonelily 
(I laughed at it in new-come colonists !), 
Lost from his Elea toward yon agora ; 
If that the Elea straining at his heart 
Be proof that neither time nor space hath truth. 
But all is still but Elea and the years 
Of youth and wisdom and the praise of men ? 
Perchance, indeed, that unity I preach 
Were this of yearning, unforgetfulness. 
Presence in very absence, if by pain 
And loss in separation very real ? 
25 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And how acknowledge, how construct anew, 
Such scheme of unity noetical 
In face of opposition and defeat ? 
For here what waits me ? That shrewd Sokrates 
Whom no man can withstand, whose ruthless test 
(So I have heard from friends who urge me to it) 
Is soul-examination (as I now 
Examine self perforce !) — he waits for me 
Even in that agora to try my truth 
By his new method (so unlike mine own 
Before this hour), to examine me 
(Himself a young man ; beautiful, no doubt, 
As every god-like intellect implies), 
Alas — and find nostalgia writ large 
Upon my spirit contradicting clean 
The world's illusiveness to men of reason, 
Elea's unity with all things here ! — 
How have I erst been wont to reason with 
Some skeptical disciple ; how, denounce 
The counter-dogma of the Ephesian sage ? 
Let me rehearse, and reassure myself 
Therewith, the folly of the counter-creed 
Which Herakleitos foisted on the world. 
The craze of contradiction ! — How become 
26 



PARMENIDES 

(How not- be in the moment that we seem ?) 
When truth is, and is-not 's nonentity ? — 

Ay, so oft-time the formula hath served 
Whilst all was at the acme and the world 
Was yet in fact but Elea unto me ; 
And nought was known, save as by vague report, 
Of league-on-league of weltering, or the sense 
Of oceans intervening, or the sight 
Of strangers cold-contain'd and arrogant. 
Indifferent to Elea as to aught 
Beyond their agora : themselves at home 
As I in Elea ; their unity 
With me, worst mockery ! Did Ephesos 
Vomit her sage, a corpse, upon these streets 
To gibber of death-throes and the charnel-house 
(Dread proofs of scarce-illusive alterance !), 
I were not more unnerved, shaken at soul, 
To meet with Sokrates and speak with him. 
I should have wiped away the universe 
Consistently with qualities of sense, 
To wean me of this Elea inwardly. 
Before I undertook to cross the seas ! 
And is not Elea quality of sense ? 
27 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Yet how maintain the doctrine, when at heart 
By this new method, self-examining, 
Which omen-like forewarneth me of him — 
Gnaweth a contradiction worse than death 
Which will not as a ghost be laid away, 
But as a Fury feasts upon my frame ! 
How can illusion warrant me these throes 
Of yearning homewardly, whilst nevermore 
Perchance shall any save the inward eye 
Behold that Elea, town where I was born : 
Which is not as Athenai ? — Ah, here comes 
(With Zenon, my disciple, urging on) 
A lout so ugly that I laugh at him — 
Not Sokrates, surely ! I had never dream'd 
A visitant so ludicrous. — Ah, well ! 
If there be any truth of Unity, 
No Reason can be in a shape so crude, 
So unlike Zenon or Parmenides, 
So utterly unlike the wisdom-form 
Of gracious balance, proud benignity ! 
None in mine Elea are so dull as this one. 
Doubtless. Our Elea shall have victory ! 



28 



PHIDIAS 

The Gods are working with me as I work ; 
I, Pheidias, sculptor ; helpmate of the man 
Perikles : maker of the homes of Gods, 
These temples ; sponsor to the homes of men, 
This town Athenai and Akropolis. 
The Gods are working with me here on high 
In air above Athenai, where the fane 
Of Parthenon already rears around 
The Form chryselephantine. Round the Form 
Athena : virgin matron, patroness 
Of the City-State, preceptress of the mind 
Of man: concentres all the orb of earth, 
From Babylon to Aithiopia, 
Cold Chersonesos or the Hesperides. 
And very near around me and this Form 
(Hid from my workshop only by these walls 
Of Parthenon, and unto memory clear) 
Lie glittering Ilissos, Lykabettos 
Where Phoibos riseth in this summer-time, 
And broad Hymettos with its dusky green. 
And, closer yet (though whither wearying sun 
Sinks to his rest), springs Areopagos 
29 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Where weighty words still sway the destinies 
Of life and death in matters of our State. 
And yonder (through these walls I picture them 
Sun-sparkling) lie Phaleron and the port 
Peiraieus; and, though further westwardly, 
The way Eleusis-ward (mysterious site, 
Emblem of piety) along the plain 
Between the hills and 'mid the almond-groves. 
The world of human power or sacred hope 
Alike concentres with me and this Form. 
Mine art embodies in the name of earth 
(Material, practical, political : 
As reverent) all that wisdom which, without 
Athena for demonstrance, were as breath 
Too subtle for the senses, unlike earth 
And therefore nought for men material. 
Void as a chaos for our politic. — 
There are who doubt them even of the Gods, 
Holding the final truth mere fire or air. 
Some few the hypercritical deny 
Athena ; and deserve the poison-cup 
For State-corruption and seditioning. 
And yet no poison-cup would still them quite, 
No punishment which breeds a sympathy 
30 



PHIDIAS 

Eradicate the sacrilegious rant ; 

Only the clear conviction of mine art 

As fundamental pedagogic fact 

Embodying Godhood, giving unto men 

Proof positive (practical, political : 

As reverent) of a true divinity 

Beyond all myth and legend. Let the myth 

Elude belief — no piety need fear 

To fall with that ! 1 turn and men shall turn 

Unto Athena sculptured by my hand 

Here in her temple on Akropolis — 

And must believe. I work with my mere hand 

As the man Perikles commanded me 

To help to rear Athenai, fit abode 

For Gods or men. But, whilst my chisel plies 

And flakes of ivory plate leap in the light, 

I know the Gods are Gods by virtue of 

This beauty of chryselephantine Form. — 

The Gods are working with me as I work. — 

Completed ! — Truth perfected ; no stroke more 
To make ? — Hand wearies and the chisel falls 
In a moment cold and dull'd. And all were as 
The Gods were not; Athena were a doubt; 
31 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Athenai some ephemera ; and myself, 
'Spoird of my body's power, suddenly 
Widely awaked in mind, as skeptic too ! 
I, for the nonce as the young Sokrates ; 
Strangely akin in new bewilderment 
To Anaxagoras who makes of thought 
The Gods' thin effigy in place of stone ; 
Parmenides and their unholy rout 
Who work no beauty, but disturb our faith 
With pleading, counter-pleading of the case 
Man had no right to enter against Gods — 
Even though brought on Areopagos ! — 
Against the Gods who only ask of men 
Belief and piety and workfulness 
Unto the archetypal truth of Form 
Which cannot be of fire or thought or air ! 
Alas ! I suddenly, as Sokrates, 
As any Eleatic anciently 
(All alike, whatsoe'er the teaching, false 
To any illustration outwardly 
Of presence and proportion, ay, to art) 
Question the clear conviction ; from my hand 
Let fall with the cold tool my piety, 
My loyalty to him, that Perikles ; 
32 



PHIDIAS 

My serviceableness to City-State ! — 
Serve I the State so truly then who carve 
The solid semblance to persuade the world 
Unto belief I fear may be but myth, 
Myth only, and no universal truth ? 
The chisel falls from the fingers ; cold and dull'd 
It lies in the silvery flakes ; and with it lies 
My spirit, vacant of divinity. 
The Form still stands a form material, 
Material only, meaningless anent 
Truth archetypal. I have rear'd above 
Athenai but some domicile of power 
To tyrannize upon the souls of men ; 
Some image born of force, projected of 
Mine overweening blind credulity — 
Ignorant of the nature of myself — 
And Perikles' persuasion. Tyrants must 
Conserve the Gods unto their own support ; 
Delude the demos to mistake mere form. 
The physical body, for what lies beyond 
Physics : the fiction of the judging mind 
(The mind, which ne'er were perfect nor complete, 
But hath its being by some form-of-growth 
And therefore cannot finish and lose faith 
33 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As now I fail of heart in finishing !), 
Which weighs my sculpture unto aimlessness. 
Denies it purpose and excuse to be 
Save as it serve at worst some archetype 
Of purpose formative not in the Form. 
And any purpose, if the Gods but fall, 
Condemns my huge Athena either way. — 
I doubt me if there be in truth a God ! 
It is in truth as one or two have said, 
Endanger'd for their wise temerity ! 
'T is true the mind is verily a form 
Quite unlike matter (leaving matter nought 
But inchoate formlessness — as now I sense 
This Anaxagoras!) ; and the over-mind. 
The formal mind of all, hath in it nought 
Of frame material, but breath alone. 
Fire or feeling, as the doctrine goes ! 
What then am I with this Athena's frame ? 
A child, a plaything of this Perikles, 
A prostitute to plans political, 
A maker of impostures ! If as men 
Our bodies be but clogs upon the soul. 
But prisons of the spirit, as rumor saith, 
Is there an art at all still worthy of 
34 



PHIDIAS 

A man's endeavor ; when his every hope 

Should be to rid his aspiration from 

The deadweight of the tenement of clay ? 

(The Eleusinians give some hint of this.) 

The poets may be mightier than I 

With all the crimes of their impieties ; 

And but because they sing earth incomplete, 

Life tragic and imperfect : Aischylos 

Or Sophokles alike leaving a world 

Which, beautiful but in-the-making, stands 

Fit to be ever new, though Godlessly. 

Philosophers may soon be born of men 

Who, surer than the surest yet of them, 

Shall yield irrefragable logic-form 

To doctrines of their immaterial 

Formative verity — and leave me here, 

Me and my works with wreck of all the Gods, 

An outgrown childhood, plaything thrown aside 

Even with Athenai and Akropolis 

While the world centres in some other sphere. — 

The Gods are perfect, fmish'd — with my work! 

The Gods with me are weary, as I lie ! 

Ah ! but the Form chryselephantine — see, 
35 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Yon line unbeautiful : not modell'd quite 
Unto the archetype I feel in me 
(Unfinishable, imperfectible !), 
The searching wisdom of the frame divine, 
Itself at growth within me as I breathe 
And move and have my being of its power, 
Demanding imitation in the clay 
Interminably to its modelling : 
Which thus alone is anywise transfused. 
One hour's brief laboring will set that right 
(As near as man may e'er achieve an end 
Which groweth in itself unendingly) 
Eternally as no man than myself 
(Not Polykleitos, he the strong and new). 
Labor he ne'er so many, many days, 
Might ever hope to render it correct ! — 
What were the barren breath-mentality. 
The truth of air or fire, were not we men 
Of frame material and with our hands 
Laborers to embody the divine, 
If only point by point interminably, 
In archetypal and enduring fact ? 
We are the children of the Gods indeed ; 
Our works are playthings of divinity ; 
36 



PHIDIAS 

Perikles, sponsor to Olympos here ; 

And I by inspiration fitted toward 

This rectification of humanity. 

The beauty of the body : it is man's truth, 

Whereunto each high thought, though thin as air, 

Nurtureth and approximates the frame 

Of every man of men in some degree. 

What though the beauty grow elusivewise 

Beyond our labor, even with each high thought 

That stimulates the sense to self-defeat ? 

We can still labor, winning truth in work 

So long as work is to us. — Whence I feel 

I have won beauty by this victory now 

Over impiety ; can grasp this tool 

Anew to more assured dexterity 

Toward absolute proportion and design. 

The work were finish 'd never, though we fail 

And cease. The hope eternal is through all : 

Wisdom, the maid Athena, matron o'er 

The glittering city on Akropolis. 

The Gods leap with me to my feet afresh, 

Stoop as I stoop, and grasp the keen-edged tool ! 



37 



EURIPIDES 

We are but human, and the human fume 
Of crime and passion reeks within the brain 
Pathetic, tragic, beautiful by proof 
Indeed of incompleteness and the need 
Of ' Gods ' and * Law ' to make intelligent 
The stultification. We indeed are men ; 
But by our partial manhood must imply 
An over-humanhood, a * God ' o'er all. 
And therefore doth the Godhood through our griefs 
Gleam forth and render radiant the scene 
Of daily anguish and the agony 
Of incompletion to these minds and hearts 
That feel a oneness deeper than the dreams 
Of love, a wider heritage than hate. 
Yet spend by doom our force in lust and wrath. 
But therefore are our passions and our shames 
Sources of noble wonder, of dismay, 
May be, but of an high tranquillity, 
Of speculation through infinitude. 
On, therefore ! be the tragedy infused 
With present limitation, let the theme 
Lift itself not beyond the ways and words 
38 



EURIPIDES 

Of poor humanity, that through those ways 

Be teaching subtler, surer than the mode 

Of dream archaic, than the dignity 

Of great discourse without the throb of blood, 

Yea, than this Sophokles' serenity 

(His, who 'd ascribe unto unmoral Gods 

The fiat that absolves mere man from blame!), 

Scornful of sin, ignorant of remorse : 

Remorse, self-blight of insufficiency ! — 

Medeia ! be thou mad amongst thine own, 

Slayer of thy self-seed in blind despair 

To spite world's huge injustice : that all men 

May shrink and shudder, take the truth to soul. 

And so learn of themselves, achieve the law 

Of self-distrust and be, beyond all Gods 

(The Gods, but men impractical, inane !), 

Efficient by the moderation ; through 

The rule of self-restraint, all-powerful ! 

Another (in this hesitation now), 
Another than myself (this Sophokles ?) 
Had fallen on recantation, writ the Fates 
Large over this Medeian manuscript ; 
And lost the tragic conscience out of all. 
39 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

He had implied some vast ship-enginery 
Whereof my murderess was but some beam, 
Some wavering mast, at most some straining cord 
Unwitting of the wallow and the gale 
That drave her, her the blameless ministrant 
Of powers beyond the ken of human soul ; 
And thus had saved her through self-ignorance 
And allegation of a truth-unknown : 
Strange contradiction ! Stranger paradox 
Yet, that I, by admission of her guilt 
Self-known and self-compell'd, have given to man 
Self-mastery by failure self-imposed ; 
Omniscience by denial of a law 
Beyond ourselves : as we are source of law 
In high internal conflict ; in ourselves 
Peace-recompensed by loss of our peace all ! — 
It is a truth new-earn'd : as this my soul 
Is new and earns (as all this Age must earn !) 
A fresh-form'd understanding. Here we stand, 
Athenai fronted by the worst of wars. 
Which unto any man sane and aware 
Must spell in the end disaster : haply then 
The ruin of our great god-founded State. 
And what shall then remain unless the soul 
40 



EURIPIDES 

Be its own theatre, and the choral ode 
Of deep endurance *neath the ruin'd rule 
Of a world undone rise as the paean now 
Sounds in the stillness of an Attic sky 
Above the breathing of the hearkening throng ? 
For I foresee the ruin of this world 
Of Perikles and proud Aspasia 
At hands of Lakedaimons, Dorian clods 
Who only by their heritage of tune 
(Longtime transferr'd unto our choristers) 
Are better than the brutes or have in them 
The sweet self-gratulation of an art. 
But therefore stand we all confronted now 
With opportunity : to base our hope, 
Not in the unknown God-imaginings 
Which with Athenai ruin finally 
But, in the self-known ruin wherethrough we too, 
Though slaughtering these children of our brain 
And heart and soul, though casting unto dogs 
These gems of tragic purport, yet shall offer 
Ourselves unto the world forever proven 
Of purport tragic though the Gods are nought. 
And thus I face the future cataclysm 
With my Medeia warning all mankind — 
41 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

These people of Athenai who must wake 

To find the Fates within us and our theme 

Of beauty born anew with every man 

Or high or low who knows within himself 

The ordered conflict conscientiously. 

This we must know who soon must slay with 

hands 
Our offspring : else shall we be, Spartan-like, 
Lost to ourselves forever, with the fall 
Of Gods and heroes as the Long Walls fall. 
1 prophesy ; and seek to leave with life 
Example of the strength within the soul. 
Which, though it yield to savage hate, inspires 
The truth with self-nobility, and lives ! — 

Enough for life, though it inflict a death 
Ennobling in itself the shame and sin ; 
Enough for this Athenai which with throes 
Shall fall and fling to ruin Tragedy : 
Athenai, beautiful if only fill'd 
With passion of self-knowledge whilst it slays. 
What, too, of death, if Attika must die 
Even as Alkestis, yielding all herself : 
That world, the wider if less worthy State, 
42 



EURIPIDES 

May linger past the life or death of these ? 

What was Alkestis when I wrote of her ? 

A something new unto the sight of man ? 

A fond return to life forevermore 

By virtue of the death vicarious ? 

And shall some wrestling with the spirit of death, 

Some soul-of-perishing that saves all things, 

Renew for all-time this Athenai too, 

If perishing but with the conscious wish 

That world shall pass to some more-worthiness 

Over, beyond anything She hath known ? 

I pause before the threshold of the thought — 

I, herald of new eras unto men 

Of pure self-knowledge though Medeia slay 

And death ensue unto the very soul ; 

Of knowledge purified and endless life 

By virtue of Alkestis, the new thought 

Of self-devotion unto death achieving. 

Not by some Fate but ever beyond Fate, — 

Identifying wisdom with the selfhood 

Of all things known though these be not of 

self — 
A victory o'er death and endless life. 
Euripides hath enter'd on the stage, 
43 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And, though he pass, shall leave the tragic world 
Not as before, but human holily ; 
More faith-felt by avoidance of all creed ; 
And thus involving Godliness through all. 



44 



SOCRATES 

Whether it be the voice oracular, 
Possession demoniacal ; or no ? 
Whether the prompting force infallible 
Be inspiration ? — Let me meet myself 
Abroad as in some spirit-agora, 
Stand face to face with me, greet me and 

pause 
Self-disputatious ; holding dialogue 
Silent, alone within the mind of me 
To clear the question of equivocacy ; 
Determining, defining mine own terms 
The trulier to understand the point, 
This question of divinity in me. 
The source of insight and intelligence 
Where reason fails. Ay, let me reason of it 
As with those casual acquaintances 
Or pupils, forcing freely from my soul 
Her premises, her preassumptive truths 
Wherewith, by interplay of stimuli 
In logic dialectical, to prove 
Some ultimate position tenable 
45 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Anent the deity within the man : 
Whether mine ignorance be sibylline ! 

The power of reason and its limit in me ? 
Man holds opinion, goes abroad to meet 
His fellow, finds within the counter-man 
Counter-opinion ; sets to reason with him 
(As I with me myself in singleness) 
Each against each ; and reaches at the last 
Some third opinion, fruit of all that toil. 
Grant me, the third opinion is the best, 
Compounded of the two now both disproved 
(Light born of darkness, truth of two untruths — 
Small satisfaction !), and that at the last 
Both disputants maintain it, each in sort, 
Though haply with no final sympathy. 
Part then these two, and go their different ways 
Out through our agora. Each meets anew 
Some disputant and sets to reason with him. 
Then from the three fresh-provable untruths 
Arise two truths, not in themselves alike, 
Being compounded of three lies distinct 
In various combination, which go forth 
Into the world, forever losing truth 
46 



SOCRATES 

By fresh compounding, never to the end 
Wholly alike (nay, unlike more and more ?), 
Yet each true to the soul that sweareth it. 
And all (as many as there may be men ? ) 
Of equal-seeming self-authority ! 
So to our reasoning is never rest ; 
So to our truth come echoes of untruth, 
Reverberations from the primal theme 
As many as we meet and teach of men. 
And therefore in the soul as many dreams 
Of half-truth as there may be voices in us 
Of man or god testing, protesting, doubting. 
Questioning, reasoning of our premisings ; 
Ev'n as I test in skeptic singleness 
The virtue of our reason-faculty. 
Thus test the premise of our power to reason - 
Conceivable but as the power of speech 
Within to bandy half-truth with the tongue 
Of men or gods. Can such an instrument 
Of untruth and of inconclusiveness 
Determine in my soul's-own dialogue 
The postulate of man or god within me 
(Whose voice hath seem'd so demoniacal) 
To supplement the range of this same reason 
47 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And yield authority where reason hath none ? 

A clear conception of the difficulty 

(Won in the bandying of words within 

Self-antinomial, interpreting 

Each to itself by alteration through 

The contact self-conceptual), the problem — 

The reasoner to say within his soul : 

By right of reason (bandyings of untruth 

Through thousand half-truths !) I pronounce him true 

Or false (him god or man) who speaks beyond 

All logic and all insight reasonable ! 

Yet are we men ; or true or false, half-gods 
In truth-assurance ! And as man-god I find 
Mine ignorance self-sibylline, self-taught ; 
With, in a sort, some sure authority 
Where reason fails. Some tongue divine there is 
(Apollon, Zeus, Athena, what care I ?) 
That leadeth in this dialogue, outweighs 
The skeptic inference of nescience 
And asks reconstitution from the first 
Of logic-method and false-premising. 
For of the reason reason's way hath proved 
Equivocacy — by what analogue, 
48 



SOCRATES 

What test demonstrable, unequivocal 
(Apart from reason !), were the reason all ? 
And thus, at first thought, must the reason-way 
Be self-annihilating, worse than void 
Because delusively aspiring to 
Authoritatively deny itself — 
Bewilderment, to reason contrary ! 
But the god-man in us will never yield 
The right to question and determine for us 
Immediate false-and-true, even if beyond 
Each tentative decision opens wide 
New vista of truth-possibility 
Which relegates as unbelieved untruth 
The narrower first conclusion. Still the process 
Of searching constitutes authority ; 
The purpose must assume to guide the mind 
With motive final, though each stage by stage 
Within the dialectic alter yet 
All minute definition of our aim 
With shift of standpoint — as my pacing feet 
Here in my courtyard change the shifting sight 
Through door and portico of shuffling crowds ; 
Yet ever bear me back and forth within 
The parallels of some soul-perfecting 
49 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Itself as felt self-fix'd, unalterable, 
And lending logic to the swarming scene 
Else without purport, aimless soullessly. 
Therefore a new conception of the soul 
Springs of itself : a self-authority 
Within the reason, self-condemnatory 
Indeed (if those old premises, proved false, 
Were still maintain'd as standpoint of debate), 
But by the inward dialogue self-proved 
Final, demonic, in best sense divine. 
For see, friend (may I call my scholar-self. 
That leads me whilst he seems to follow still, 
Friend whilst the talk flows on and knowledge comes 
With personal sympathy in this self-soul ?), 
For see how every man within himself 
Stands — not a mere untried equivocal 
Opinion isolate from aught of truth. 
Else in the flux of a void of skepticism ; 
But — each within himself as dialogue, 
Protagonist and chorus of the truth. 
Himself the truth, himself the tragedy 
That fmds full definition but in death 
Of one, in sympathetic passing o'er 
To new scenes through the theatre of the world — 
50 



SOCRATES 

New selfhood — of the many to spread truth 
Fresh-learn 'd by witness of lost falsity : 
The tragic meaning ! See how every growth 
Proves but self-definition (in itself, 
The continuity each concept lacks 
Beyond the moment's premising), soe'er 
Corrected, still identical as no 
Twice-held opinion ! Therefore growth itself, 
By virtue of conclusive questioning, 
Proved the all-saving truth ! 

T is thus I learn 
Self-taught to solve the dim antinomy 
As never in mere dialogue with men 
Might the truth give and take to true effect. 
For see how closer to the truth I stand 
Who talk within me, who in hearkening 
And counter-talk take instant sympathy 
(That exercise of very voice divine) 
Which no man with his neighbor feeleth so 
Whole and all-grasping as when soul with self 
Commune and mutually win the way 
Of comprehension ! Thus by this communing 
I feel the demon for the truth's own fact ; 
My inward sight (conclusive of the views 
51 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of both inquirers, by hypothesis), 

The perfect sanction and authority — 

And need none other : proving reason nought 

Of mere opinion solely, but itself 

The process of opinion-alterance. 

The growth intelligent within the soul 

(True in degree as sympathy inheres 

Instead of isolation, comprehension 

In place of demarcation — as in me now !), 

That meets and talks with men and meets their 

views 
With counterview born of the gendering 
Of soul in soul, the insight sibylline. — 
Why forth into the agora, when truth 
Comes final and insistive thus within ? 
Why forth to processes of reasoning 
Imperfect, self-destructive ; when the way 
Of reason, method, logic I have learn 'd 
Alone within my house apart from men ? 
But might I not in converse yet explain them 
The loftier definition and so serve 
The cause of clear conception in the mind 
By leading men each to commune alone 
With self and so experience in self 
52 



SOCRATES 

(Not then ascribable to other minds 

Nor any mere opinion here or there) 

The truth-assurance, hear the voice divine ? 

For thus were I conclusive of mankind, 

The continuity of other men, 

Their growth, their self-persuasion, guarantee 

And warrant of authority as truth ; 

Outward, as inwardly, that very voice ! 



53 



SOPHOCLES 

NOTHING too much ! — My prosperous old-age 
Were proof sufficient of the paradigm. 
Nothing too much : gnomic of my career ! — 
Aischylos* wrath, Euripides' unrest 
(Each rival, he the loftier, earlier one 
Or he the versatile of nowadays). 
At odds with fortune ; ay, whilst I work on, 
At harmony with all things, heartily. 
Happily moulding beauty of this breath 
Of times antique, to-day's, to-morrow's truth 
Alike, in terms and tones accepted yet 
Of the old, old stories, tales heroical 
Dear to the Attic heart as to mine own. 
Aischylos knew the old nobility 
Indeed, and worthily did mouth of it 
A scene high-sounding ; but himself was moved 
Too deeply as by horror, felt of truth 
Some secret shame and somewhat blamed in men 
Their subtlest reverence, best piety 
Of faith, their fair assumption that the gods 
Are from reproach immune ; himself thereby — 
Through effort clearly to establish Zeus 
54 



SOPHOCLES 

Above mere blame, habilitate the truth — 
Betray'd into impiety perchance 
By strange portrayal of a Zeus impure 
Self -justified in tyranny. Howbeit, 
Was Aischylos at odds with Attic taste, 
Safest criterion of sanity ; 
Taste which demandeth no self-justifier 
For Zeus Olympian, but sees in him 
Embodiment of sanction ; all his deeds 
Themselves criterial of justice. So 
Was Aischylos at odds with earth and found 
Too much of meaning in the mighty myth 
For man to master and make art of it. 
And thus, forsooth, he fail'd. Euripides 
Is of another mould, but no less fails. 
For him, the too-much lieth in a zeal 
To reconstruct, make something new of truth, 
Plainly half-impious in denying much 
Men must believe, be there but gods at all ; 
A zeal too much to substitute for myth 
The lore of merely men, to feel and speak 
Men as they are, though unheroical 
And far too homely for our tragedy. 
His ways betray their failure, that they feel 
55 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Scarce horror, scarce a shame, but sympathy 

For failure. E'en, his plays would seem to teach 

Not reverence for godhood nor for men 

Moderate and potent, but for men (unlike, 

Far too unlike mine own prosperity 

And harmony of competence !) themselves 

Similar in their unprosperity 

To him who made them not as heroes are. 

*T is thus with Aischylos, Euripides, 

And all who yield too much unto themselves. 

Unmoved I make men as they ought to be — 

Men failing alone by Fate, if fail they must 

(Crush 'd nor as by tyranny divine nor lost 

Of any seed of weakness in themselves) ; 

Heroic, high : and in myself reflect 

Lustre of ancient mythus all my days. 

Such as the marble works of Perikles 

Or perfect Pheidias is mine old-age. 

Serene, unmoved, at harmony with all 

Of good or ill, one with our Attic taste. 

Calm in Kolonos though the Long Walls fall, 

Which fate forefend unto our piety ! — 

Nothing too much. — And am I calm at heart 
56 . 



SOPHOCLES 

Whilst tottereth Athenai, and the men 
Who made her glorious die day by day 
Before me, and the years of them are o'er 
Who should have been eternal ; when the times 
(Even in this interval of Spartan peace) 
Not as by Fate, but as by human fault, 
Fall from their leading and forget their name 
Who bless'd and still should bless with memory 
The place that once possess'd them ? Am I calm ? 
Might I write, all unmoved, of such as them ? 
Of gods-made-men, of men heroical 
Who labor'd and achieved, yet, by some flaw 
Of the human in them, suffer'd and are lost ? 
Were not the tragedy I might produce 
If moved by sympathy with former friends 
Something superior to the perfect piece ; 
Something which Aischylos, Euripides, 
Each may have sought if blindly, may have said 
Somewhat though I have miss'd ? This Aischylos, 
Portray 'd he not Zeus reconciled with men 
By understanding face to face, by speech, 
More potent even than a Fate unnamed ? 
This fervent, multiple Euripides, 
Sings he not somewhat as of man who works 
57 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And partially prevails ? Did Perikles 
Perfect yon Propylaia, yet and fell 
(Ah ! like these human of Euripides !) 
Grief-stricken for a pestilence, dismay'd — 
Not as by Fate, but for our human fault — 
At the times* prospect ? Did not Pheidias 
(If not for tyranny, yet as for godhood, 
Ah ! Zeus-apologist of Aischylos !) 
Suffer dishonor from Athena's folk ? 
I have seen Perikles dismay'd in death 
And Pheidias dishonored : but myself 
(Nay, note the irony : myself the Fate !) 
Have never known a failure, not till now ! 
Scarce or in soul or skena have I fail'd — 
Till now by sympathy ? Though all men else, 
The princely Perikles or Pheidias 
My perfect peer alike (ah, irony !), 
Attempt some way too much, are broken by it 
I nowise ! Were my way indeed the best ? 
Or faileth not the gnoma where I fail 
By sympathy unwonted, proving so much 
Of meaning to our life that none should be 
Of golden mediocrity who live ? 
Was not I dead until this moment's mood 
58 



SOPHOCLES 

Of sympathy too much revivifying 
For calm of artistry within my soul 
The over-zeal, the over-weakness, yet 
The peerless manhood of my manhood's friends, 
Perikles, Pheidias (e'en Euripides?), 
Worthy of loftiest poetry and pose 
Upon our skena as I know to-day ? 
Combine the Zeus-defensive with the man 
Weltering in self-felt weakness : and conceive 
The archetype of more-than-tragedy. 
The ultimatum of our Attic taste ! — 
My way achieved the most : so men must say — 
And self-peace with the accomplishment, 't was true — 
Behold my three-score tragedies, supreme 
In men's opinion over all plays else. 
Perchance ? But at this moment all are nought, 
All, to begin anew still unbegun. 
And I first competent by this too-much 
Which now hath hold on me and shakes my soul 
With wrath and unrest for the failure of 
Perfection, for the perfecting by death 
(Or failure's self ?) of work still useless else, 
For all its mere achievement. To my soul 
Or unto Attika, alone hath worth 
59 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The wonder of men's suffering, the gods* 
Self-justification through a tyranny 
None the less hateful that it richeth life 
To beauty by the very pity of it ! 

T is this my pity for that Perikles, 
Mine agony for Athenai, that is more 
Than any self-success : 't is that alone 
Which makes of tragedy the art of truth 
And nature above nature (life of mine, 
By feeling as by insight life of theirs ! ) ; 
Which makes me great as Aischylos was great 
And this Euripides beyond us both : 
Me great, if only great by Oidipous 
The Sufferer who serveth Attika 
By suffering still our hospitality ! 
Me, moved in Kolonos by mine Oidipous, 
Who by too much of failure proves at end 
A best possession of our Attika, 
A blessing and beneficence of Zeus 
Through all our days, maugre the curse and sin 
Of human ignorance and gods' despite ! — 
Ah ! if through failure hitherto by too-much 
Of artistry, too-little poethood 
60 



SOPHOCLES 

In me (too-much perfecting ; not enough 
Creation !), yet some day my sweet Kolonos 
May feel bless'd in possession of my bones 
And honor me with sacrifice perchance 
For honoring in rhyme this Oidipous 
Most pitiably human of all men 
Though unheroical ; may honor me 
For the true poethood, for tragedy 
Above, beyond the golden media, 
Teeming with sympathies as now my soul 
(Not as by Fate,, but for her human fault — 
As I, being I, must know no Fate for mine !) 
Appropriates failure and in her old-age 
Becomes (as Aischylos', Euripides') 
Herself of tragic meaning, hence of man : 
Achieving more than some prosperity 
Of senile competence : me, Sophokles, 
Somewhat as Oidipous, a truth at last. 
Some gnoma in my person and a force 
To guide, make grow, not pander Attic taste ; 
Me, moved in Kolonos by the pity of it ! 



6i 



PLATO 

The blue sky overarcheth with a sense 
Of space illimitable, self-sustain 'd. — 
The blue waves fling awide in the breeze ; sea-birds 
Wheel, hover, dart in the foam with plunge and scream 
Unfetter 'd ; and the wings of this swift ship 
Aiginaward from Syrakousai press 
Before this west wind as with inward will 
And purpose : every sight and sound informed 
With life-insistence. Yet of me my mind 
Alone is free, this body but a slave 
By tyranny's command ; and in a slave 
Must my mind evermore be buried as 
In some self-sheol ; taking blow by blow 
The temper of obedience, the tone 
Of sequence and subservience ; to be 
As shadow only of the mind of man, c 

As tyrant's sycophant ! How far opposed 
Unto my present temper and that tone 
Of proud reliance and a high disdain 
Which brought my downfall : even thus my mind 
Sold into slavery as some prisoner 
By power of circumstance ; that circumstance 

62 



PLATO 

Its bondage to the body ! For all things 

Are sycophant, subservient sequently 

To matter's tyranny, the base command 

Of physical passivity ; and seem 

Free but by mind's illusion, active but 

By figure of the fancy. Lo ! these masts 

Are bended of a blast inanimate 

And would not, haply, though indeed they must 

Aiginaward bear on ; and so the sea 

Bursts beneath burden of this bustling breeze ; 

The birds by hard desire of food or lust 

To procreate their kind are driven fro 

And yon pursuing and pursued, not one 

All self-impulsive, but directed all 

Toward outward circumstance ; the sacred sky 

Doubtless were but some element ; as these 

Compell'd — to silence and a stagnancy ? 

Shall I, the slave of Dionysios' sneer, 

Decay to silence and a stagnancy ? 

The mind hath seem'd creator of all things. 
Divine by emanation of all truth 
Therefrom — impress'd not as from truth-without 
Nowise subservient (witness Sokrates 
63 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Sublime in dying!). Yet this slightest change 

Of the body's state from freeman unto slave, 

This incident of Dionysios' frown, 

Shall this corrupt the essence of Idea ? 

(Was Sokrates to such a death compell'd ? ) 

How slight an alteration ; when from birth 

Hath body, like the billows or these birds. 

Been driven — whether as by outer force 

Or inward want, what heed ? — through all its days 

A creature of necessity compell'd : 

And therewith even the Reason housed therein. 

How slight a change, how insignificant, 

From free to slave, if body aye be slave ! 

Have I, one hour, been freeman and not slave ? 

Is any man then free ? Freeman or slave, 

Can slavery alter then one whit the state 

Of Reason (bar that truth of Sokrates 

The Savior)? For if man is never free. 

Then slavery, being best knowledge of himself. 

But aids toward freedom. And, if not slave-born 

In virtue of our body-prisonment. 

Then Reason lifts beyond all circumstance 

Compulsive, whether sold a slave or no. 

(And either way is Sokrates proved free 

64 



PLATO 

As he devoted body unto death ! 
And either way is custody of body — 
'Soe'er custodian of soul — no curse ! ) — 
I have been somewhat free beyond most men, 
Somewhat more reasoning and therefore moved 
Of high philosophy to seek abroad 
The springs of wisdom in the ways of men. 
By Neilos, in Kyrene have I sought ; 
Elea ; and schools of the Pythagoreans ; 
Completing the best circuit of men's dreams 
To blend in them I had at Megara 
With keen Eukleides since Athenai-time. 
Might I return, within as outwardwise 
A bondman ? Or shall this last voyaging 
Aiginaward achieve what I have sought : 
An insight and a system of the truth ? 

Behold ! from those sweet lips of Sokrates 
I first received the love of lofty thought — 
Him, who in all mine earnest dialogues 
Enacts protagonist 'mid many men ; 
Him, symbol of all rationality ! 
To him be mine obeisance ! Though the soul 
Seek sight original, his sight leads on ! 

65 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

For from his doctrine thus much I imbibed : 
The primacy of Reason ; how no truth 
Is truth but by the mind's conception of it, 
By definition common to its class 
And therefore self-sufficed, immutable, 
Free and eternal, not as one of these. 
His the new gnoma : * Learn of soul, not world * 
Despite the physicists. From him the faith : 
Of freedom in the realm of pure Idea. 
And yet, these elder Eleatic schools 
Who look for freedom in some Unity 
And find in Wholeness physical their Law ! 
Or they who, Herakleitos-like, have found 
Sanction and satisfaction in the theme 
Of flux and passing on the face of things ! 
Found they not somewhat meet unto the mind. 
Somewhat of permanence, self-equity. 
In outward world despite the paradox ? 
Methinks Pythagoras might yield a term, 
Some golden mean between the face of things 
That passeth and the 'stablishment of Law ? 
Number hath multiplicity and still 
Permanence, unity of character, 
A certain continence of identity, 

66 



PLATO 

Through all mutation. With that thought to guide, 

Might not a way be found to reconcile 

The freedom and the slavery of man ? 

For in the man, as in the number-scheme, 

Are integrality (the freedom of him. 

Well-named the mind — the pride of Sokrates 

Unswervable) and multiplicity, 

This sequent reference to other things 

(That hemlock offer'd to the lips to drink !). 

In man are sameness, then, and otherness 

Strangely united — as, eclectical, 

1 seek thus to unite Parmenides 

With him of Ephesos through terms of speech 

Best writ in the book I bought (but now have lost) 

Of Philolaos. Can the problem be 

So simple of solution : that some Soul 

Inheres between the heavens and the earth, 

'Twixt mind and body reconciling them, 

Partaking of them both, yet nowise they ; 

Whose omnipresence and omnipotence 

Is mathematic. Number's very self ? 

A mighty bolt to unbar heaven and earth. 
Forsooth ; a business now beyond my brain 
67 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Perturb'd by sense of slavehood's impotency, 
But mightily alluring should some chance 
Exchange this serfdom for the nobler life 
Of citizen and teacher in some court 
Or garden near to Akademos' grove. 
Ah, might I hope some outlook to return 
Homeward redeem 'd by bounty of a friend ! 
More like, to execution am I haled 
(A parody of Sokrates indeed ! ) 
Among the Aiginetans hostile to me 
By reason of their quarrel with our State ! 
Ah, me ! And yet some insight have I gain'd 
Haply of moment equal unto all 
That learning of the Schools : this sense that man 
Is still both slave and free, and that in world 
(The type of serfdom) as in very mind 
(Our type of freedom) equally inheres 
The dualism and blendeth with them both : 
The mind, by reason of its bodiment, 
Imbued with strange compulsion ; and the world, 
By reason of the primacy of mind. 
Passive beneath some freedom-of-its-own 
Inseparable, nowise not of it. 
And thus is Soul the very problem's self, 
68 



PLATO 

The mean and common term contain'd of both 
(Though both have nought in common, nought be- 
tween ! ) 
Matter and spirit, containing equally 
Both horns of world's dilemma : and thus a term 
Not separable nor abstracted from 
The conflict which defines it (Sokrates 
Involved in birth-and-dying ; life and death 
Explain'd through Sokrates !). — And thus were they 
Right, the old physiographers, to test 
The world all ways, that it might yield its truth 
E'en though material ; for in the earth 
Its constitution see we mirror- wise 
The problem of the heavens, the elements 
Which are contain'd of mind inversely shown 
(Flux, change for self ; peace for the space of things) 
To mind's interpretation. As was he 
Right, the great Sokrates, to prove of mind 
The truth direct : the peace of inward self. 
The roil but own'd of otherness perceived 
By sense without. Wherefore am I not wrong 
To seek in soul of the world some scheme that shall 
(As air is intermediate, proportion'd 
Harmonic 'twixt the heavens and the earth) 

69 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Explain the contrast ; show how man is free 
(How Sokrates both lived and died, one Man) 
Though slave, how serfdom never may express 
The psychic habitancy of the spheres 
As my soul soars and is at peace with them 
Through all this turmoil's sad expectancy ! 

For, lo ! how were a freedom to be found 
In isolation, void of other men 
To meet in equal intercourse of mind 
With mind, each mind thus entering in and 

owning 
As self-like every fresh mentality 
Not as identical conceived, but known 
As other, mutually known, defined ? 
The way of loneliness were ever silence 
And stagnancy, not self-sufficiency 
To any purpose : serfdom, but world's type 
Inverted of such isolation ; I 
Fitly enslaved for seeking such a scheme 
Of vacant chaos as were mere Idea 
Hypostatized but not phenomenal. 
Identical but wholly undefined — 
Interminable ! How were World-Ideas 
70 



PLATO 

Aught wonderful or worthy, were not each 
Defined, scarce by some common character 
In concept (quite precluded to the lone 
Idea!) but, best, beyond identity. 
By contrast self-implied through all the world ? 
For otherwise were they but number merely ; 
As world, indifferently were one or nought; 
Subject to duplication, hence unreal, 
Because still undefined, positionless : 
But now are Number reconciling all 
Perplexity by implication each 
Of unity in multiplicity, 
Of integrality in otherness ; 
And world is not without, but is of mind. — 
Yon blue waves beat and burst because they must ; 
These masts bend, driven, to the piping gale 
And part the waters with a roar and rush 
Of proud prow-impulse ; and the white sea-birds 
Pursue and are pursued. But all because 
Yon blue sky soars not self-illimitable 
(Is not some element apart from these): 
Serene indeed, but standing upon earth 
Or ocean's wide-encircled founding-flood 
A thing of breath and air, of motion, spirit — 
71 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Itself a spirit as all space is spirit 

Containing and contain'd ; not calculable, 

But valued as of truth : and is as they. 

I am a slave and enter into freedom 

By bondage — a slave — and have achieved a Soul ! 



72 



ARISTOTLE 

How can he teach who faileth to explain 
The method of our learning, how we come 
To know the unknown : an we truly learn ? 
How can he teach who cannot of himself 
Find organon, who groping for the Mind 
Loseth all grasp of soul's experience ? 
How can he yield experience to men ? 

Not recollection nor forgetfulness 
Might solve this paradox of Known-Unknown, 
This presence of an universal truth 
In truth not universal, of the God 
In self, the certainty in sensuous things 
As felt despite their doubt and falsity : 
This difficulty of the Master's creed 
Which he might name but never might remove 
By myth — metempsychosis and the dream 
Of anamnesis, fable which assumes 
Original possession, someway lost, 
Of truth whose gradual acquirement, 
Of godship whose contingent genesis 
(Alone the problem as the paradox !) 
73 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Alone might be demonstrable. For what proof 
(E'en were the proof to problem pertinent!) 
Were plausible ? Where might the man begin 
His immemoriality save as 
(God being alone possess'd of truth as whole) 
The very Godhead ? And, if very God, 
Then must each consequent remove by birth 
(Each strange escape of warrant ultimate 
From out the actual which alone Is !) 
Be some degeneration, without cause 
Or logic possible, compatible ; 
A flaw in the fibre of the Essence' Self, 
A foul decomposition as of death 
(A name, this death, perchance, for all this coil ?) 
Inherent, not to any mortal thing 
But, to the causal Origin of Life ! 
And thus of one hand must the Godhead prove 
Self-contradiction, incompatible 
With absolute establishment ; whilst yet 
Of the other hand the life of every man, 
Increasing hourly by experience 
In knowledge and in wisdom, contradicts 
The tendence of the Godhead (thus defined 
As stultification), and moreover thwarts 
74 



ARISTOTLE 

By mere inevitable cumulance 
Of certainty and insight through the years 
The natural teleology of things ; 
Runs counter to the soul's supremest goal 
^Of perfect godship as the crown of life 
(For so this Platon's doctrine needs were crown 'd) 
Such godship (that of self-degenerance 
Inherent) shown beneath the dignity 
Of idiocy, a godship self-deceived 
And worse than worthless if deceiving Man ! 
The Master endeth in a Mystery : 
An universe at odds within itself ; 
A primal Cause of self-deintegrance — 
And he, by preassumed self-ignorance, shown 
Unfit to teach who knoweth not to learn ! — 
I well know otherwise ; I feel in me 
A worth of wisdom in experience, 
The value of this sense-accumulation. 
The dignity of life as it is learning 
And not forgetfulness, the insight gather'd 
Aspiring as to God ; and know the God 
A goal of aspiration ; if unmoved 
(Still unattainable), yet not at last 
Devolving and destroying, save as death 
75 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Be parcel of developmental life, 

Wherethrough the individual achieves 

An impulse for the race and class of each 

Onward and Godward ! —How shall these truths be ? 

A motion and a Cause ; the creature moved 
And the Creator — if the phrase be so. 
An immanence of universalness 
Conative, self-recognizant in act, 
A system of accumulance impress'd 
As in a mould ; a force defining self 
Substantialwise ; a matter and a form. 
These, the essentials ; and the rest obtains. 
I touch and test the world of men and things, 
Finding one substance to the touch and test, 
An opposition, self -negation of 
All impulse, a passivity excluding 
(Particularity of judgment-mode) 
Its own mere part-displacement under stress, 
A space-impassive none the less compel I'd : 
For creature-moment ; and I call the thing 
Matter, as meaning elemental rest. 
The moved and dead-created, uncreate. 
Immobile in itself — nay, that which hath 
76 



ARISTOTLE 

As 't were no selfhood, is not in itself. 
I touch and test the world of self within, 
Finding a test, but not a substance here 
To touch : an action of appropriance 
(The generality of truth-adjudged), 
Hardly of opposition though containing 
All self-distinction, part within the part. 
This that I find I call the mind of me 
(Experiential ; never as in dream 
Disjunct from world, self-segregate from things ; 
But registrant and nowise self-innate) ; 
Made universal as the world of mind. 
The self-impressive, that which makes the test 
As register'd and testing registrates ; 
Which is creator of distinctiveness 
As though internal through the vague extern 
Of segregative substance, binding it 
To self-relationship and unity ; 
And thus is mould, or still more subtly Form, 
The final motive. Thus the riddle reads. 
Now, to the theme of world-development 
(Consonant with the growth of me by thought 
Or act-participation in affairs 
From day to day) must a new proof adhere 
17 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of tendency, self-teleology 
In mutualization of the duplex stuffs 
(Abstractly so defined as I 've defined them 
Each aspect severally); for these must still 
Constitute interplay ; and otherwise 
Were no duplexity but separate worlds 
Unthinkable, preposterous to proof. 
Therefore must be for further postulate 
The innate yearning of the primal vague 
Toward truth-distinctiveness as in a sort 
Appropriate thereto, a property 
(Degenerative of degenerance' self, 
Preclusive of inertia in the inert !) 
Even of passivity as actualized ; 
And on the counter hand the zeal of mind 
To transcend and sublate with proof of form 
(And thus achieve itself !) material fact : 
The term of mind actualized so and taken 
For mutual-matter's goal-finality. 
Likewise the inward latency of things 
Toward declaration — not as though some void 
Were gradual fill'd of substance less or more 
Compact-diffuse ; but as though form and substance 
Were self-processive, were by nature nought 
78 



ARISTOTLE 

Than mutuality, whose proof and sign 
Is Time, the passing of the days and years. 
Nor might a logic of analysis 
(Such as were practical to be put forth, 
On basis of the Platonism here, 
To counteract the Master's mere mistakes 
Of extra-worldliness, and yet to be 
Readily understanded of the schools), 
A classification of our genera 
And species, an epistemology 
Of type as perfect object (as I fear 
My doctrine will adumbrate, implicate 
As men will half-mistake it ! ) quite attain 
A method-organon of such a scheme 
Of cumulance and temporality. 
In mutualizing of each element 
By definition through all substance else. 
Substance unmutual were stuff of space, 
'Tis true, demarcable and alterable 
Partitive-wise, abstract each part from part 
And strictly self-contain'd in every part 
Without a reference to aught extern — 
Such stuff were well demonstrable by rule 
Of contradiction and a common term 
79 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

For consubstantiation ; and indeed 
Were such a logic-system Platon's surely, 
Conformable to and explicable of 
The pure Idea. But such should not be my 
Doctrine of knowledge ; for my creed should be 
More adequate to a knowledge entering in 
As mind-term of the world-hypothesis 
Developmental, cumulant — whereof, 
Despite all ignorance, might no term be 
Itself unknown in present actualness ; 
Such membership in knowledge rightly achieved, 
Not by community with outer fact 
(Mergence impossible) but, by reference 
To somewhat (selfhood with the object of it) 
Both gone before and coming after ; each term 
Itself present in time but nowise one 
With what it cannot be, the yesterday 
Nor the to-morrow ; but each day of days 
Defining and referring in itself 
To all-time ; thus eternal ; thus self-known 
By self-distinctiveness ; thus generalized. 
Self-absolute as every Truth must be ! 
And thus alone were knowledge possible 
As universal in the temporal scheme ; 
80 



ARISTOTLE 

And thus alone were logic actual 
Because contain 'd of cumulative life 
Processive, self-achieving as toward God ! 

'T were plausible! And note how opens out 
The field of travail to philosophy : 
No longer blind to every fact of earth 
With faith but focuss'd on the farthest stars, 
But finding in the daily strife o' the world 
The dear domain of absolute idea, 
Of form the truth-constructor, not beyond 
World wholly (for, were form beyond the world, 
Were form but shown inane and actionless 
In isolation of a pseudo-truth 
Call'd mathematic, number) but, itself 
The mind, self-comprehension of things all. 
So, to the field of travail ! that this earth 
Be catalogued ; and categorical 
Analysis — not sheerly part from part. 
But mutualwise with generality 
Specifical in contrast self -contain 'd 
Of each itself — declare of each the frame 
And genesis, its coming unto truth. — 
Granted that all shall pass and grow anew 
8i 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

To stricter frame, more self-disposed to achieve 
Economy of action purposeful ; 
Granted that teleology propose 
Invention now undream'd : and therefore these 
Now extant modern instances of truth 
Wax obsolete : shall that deter one whit 
The wonder of the instant truth-survey, 
The sure investigation here and now 
Whereof each item of real genesis 
(Nowise explaining away the now-complex !) 
Shall postulate and indicate to men 
The doctrine of the vital latency, 
The potency of matter and the zeal 
Energic of the world-updrawing mind 
Godward developing through all her days ? 
The cause efficient as the genesis : 
And then beyond, beneath and still within, 
The God-cause final, the perfected Form 
So far as may be meant of mortal mind 
Working within these days and in these ways 
That man may work in as the world is young. 
And, young or old, some knowledge step by step 
Sure in the doctrine and the world-idea, 
The formative pure process and the proof 
82 



ARISTOTLE 

By teleology, the yearning-toward 
Inherent and insistent ! — At the worst 
'Twere plausible, though still the rift remain 
And riddle of an universe at odds ! 
Though still the self-dilemma needs inhere : 
Of Learning in the stead of Ready-Known, 
Of genesis in place of plethora ! 
Though all be problem still, 't were plausible I 
Why trouble, then, further with the riddle of it. 
When at the worst my world is onwardly 
A self -correction, not a chaos-come ? 
My logic stands sufficient to the times. 
Their need to dis-god Platon and design 
An organon of high acquirement 
By truth transmissible, so teachable, 
Not block'd by body's bad forgetful ness, 
But plain appreciable as here and now 
Complete, didactically fmitive : 
Wanting but souls to seize it ! Oh, for some 
King-born disciple, one who might, by strength 
Of this world-knowledge, as he conquer'd earth, 
Rule well, self-cognizant of law and rule 
Within him as within the world he ruled ; 
Some pliant prince, receptive to the mould 
83 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(Philippos* child, the Makedonian's, 
My father's patron's grandson, should be he ?) 
Of this my masterful impressive mind 
As matter to the Form — I unto him 
Master and God -cause final ; he to me 
The latency, the striving. That my labor 
Be not lost, but my name be known in him 
(No name of race nor class nor kind, but my name !), 
An universe of practice, though my theme 
Be theoretic and my deeds be nought. — 
The Master of these Akademos-groves 
Hath miss'd the meaning, is as one apart, 
For all his vast discipleship here shown. 
He is a truth, but weak within the world 
Because of isolation, disregard 
Of the body of the world, its genuine zeal 
Toward self-salvation and accumulance 
Of truth experiential in the form 
Impressible by men 'mongst other men. 
By mind 'mongst other minds projectible 
Each upon others pedagogically — 
And by such only. For were truth apart, 
A theme but of these Akademic groves. 
Then were no knowledge possible, unless 
84 



ARISTOTLE 

We dream 'd and have forgotten and at best 
May bitterly remember as we die 
The old lost Godhood self-deintegrant. 
But I, I grow by inward genesis 
Of truth in every instant ; and start forth 
A Teacher ; and shall teach unto some man 
(Whether or no Demosthenes denounce !) 
The secret of the governance of earth : 
And, unto ages, truth grown of my truth ! 



85 



ASOKA 

Behold these my decrees, on steles set 
Plain, in the portions of mine empire 
Triune, in North and East and West alike 
Proclaiming dominance of my true creed, 
The cult of Him the Buddha, Blessed One ! - 
How hold my diverse empire in hand 
As wholly mine and mighty, save by such 
Dominance of some spiritual truth 
Potent to seize upon men's many minds 
And so subdue them to subservience. 
Leaving my mind lifted on high alone 
Above their poor desires and feebler will ; 
My will and my desire alone of strength 
To overcome sedition, stamp all sign 
Of treason from beneath me, and be sure : 
Asoka, I, supreme, imperial ? 

Asoka, I, supreme, imperial. 
Founding my power on the Buddha's word ! 
What creed so clearly might consolidate 
Imperial power, as this of quietism. 
Some somnolent non-assertion of men's wills 
86 



ASOKA 

Against mine in the world, their hope at last 
For innermost non-essence, slow attained 
Through many lives of meekness more and more ? 
Through many lives of weakness : I alone 
Strong, unencumber'd of the creed imposed ! 
These priests of Brahma (whom I nowise hurt 
Now they are harmless !) had made sorry slaves 
With their pretensions to authority 
And spiritual power over men 
By ceremonial observances 
And sacrifices to propitiate 
A pandemonium of deities 
Conceived above all power imperial ! 
How had I wasted life in truckling to them. 
Cajoling, flattering ; and been weaken'd by it 
In every hour of my governing! 
How had I been their puppet, just a show 
Of kinghood : but for these few cataclysms 
Happily now performed upon their heads 
Which rid me of their menace. Whereupon 
In gratitude to Gautama, behold 
These steles of an universal peace 
Proclaiming quietism ; to all men 
Self-abnegation, and at last reward 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(Scarcely by grace of any deity), 
For non-resistance, in a nothingness : 
Myself alone remaining as some god ; 
Asoka, I, supreme, imperial ! 
May I, the king, attain no Buddhahood ! 

What worthy system were there of a world 
Without some dominant superior 
To order and devise, plan and proclaim, 
Determining the Path, making the Law 
Unto the diverse disagreements of 
The dull and wrangling peoples ? What were well 
Were it not for the wisdom of some man 
Eminent, understanding, capable 
Even to compel obedience overtly 
And with authority overawe the heart 
And mind unto subservient content ? 
These priests of Brahma were a wiser folk 
Than any mendicant ; and e'en within 
This Order of the Law (in monastery 
As through novitiate), the Law prevails 
As Gautama devised it, and the Law 
Needs, both, and finds preceptors wise enough 
(Though by their vow not menacing to me !) 
88 



ASOKA 

To discipline, chastise, enforce, and seem 

Authoritative to the time and place. 

How doth this plain necessity for power 

And for obedience run through all our ways 

Of earth and men, preventing quietism 

Absolute, abrogating emptinesses 

Of will and purpose, proving each of us 

Incapable of nothingness, each man 

Imperial in a sort, someway supreme 

In the mere life-assertion every day 

Of breath and being. And the greatest man 

Is the most dominant ; the happiest 

He who proclaims and can enforce decrees 

On the recalcitrant. These Brahmin priests 

Were greater than their fellows ; that they fell 

Because a greater was among them, I — 

I, though low-born of caste, by strength of heart 

Brahmin indeed of Brahmins, greatest of them, 

Asoka, king, supreme, imperial ! 

Ah, but a greater was upon the earth : 
Gautama, the Enlightened, Blessed One, 
He whom I reverence, who without decree 
Or force of cataclysm, nor by aid 
89 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of any power material could compel 
All men to yield unto His purposes 
And be subservient unendingly ! 
Even Asoka, in defying Him 
Whocounsell'd uttermost humility, 
Hath bow'd unto His power and become 
His slave, Asoka who establisheth 
Himself supreme, imperial but by strength 
Of Buddha's Law within the kingly mind : 
Imperial disciple ! Would that I 
Knew but the secret of His prevalence, 
To rule without decree, command by strength 
Of prescience inborn ; and be, as He, 
Buddha ; in mine own person, as a creed ! 



go 



PAUL 

A MURMUR is of many men around 
Unfriendly (as at Thessalonica and 
Philippi) — God be unto me a shield 
And strength ; for I shall need Him when 1 stand 
High there on Areopagus. The Jews 
Hate, when they dare indulge their hearts to hate, 
Even with the hate of hounds and wolves (I, once, 
A Grecian Jew : twice venomized !) ; the Greeks 
Shriek shriller than the Jews, but at the worst 
Hate Jew worse than this Jesus of my word. 
(Perchance their hatred of myself as Jew 
Will melt in mockery when I come to speak 
Of truths un-Jewish and a novelty ? ) 
That thus will God help, guard, if not by peace 
And goodwill among men, at least by strife 
Of Greek 'gainst Hebrew, shielding Christ and me— 
A Roman citizen as they may know — 
Beyond the fear of harm. I less should fear 
Were mine affliction not upon mine eyes : 
That so I see not clearly, but as darkling 
Perceive these scowling faces in the throng 
So close about. But I will swell my thought 
91 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

With inward vision and beyond their frowns 

Draw wisdom with courage from the Source of both, 

Dispelling hesitancy. — I will mount 

Mars' Hill and speak unto the Stoics thence, 

The Epicureans and idolaters. 

Athens below me as I dimly climb, 
All Greece, a different nation, other minds 
Than Antioch, than Salamis, despite 
That Hellenism of the Syrian shores — 
For was not I a Jew though Hellenist ; 
Although Cilician, mystic at the heart ? 
These are not mystics at the heart (for all 
That altar to the Unknown God I spell'd 
Below in Agora !), but men of sense 
(For so, in the moment's need, their viewpoint seems 
More rational than formerly — than mine ? ) 
Desirous of an understanding mind. 
As I in private converse have discern 'd. 
Beyond mere superstition. — How to meet 
Need of the moment by the word of God ? 
How render unto Pericles (for much 
Of Athens' history I late have learn 'd. 
Her rulers and philosophers) in speech 
92 



PAUL 

The things of Pericles, when my truths be 
The things of God ? — And yet I feel that God 
Is logical — as Greece is logos-wise ; 
Is practical — as I am practical : 
Apostle laboring, accomplishing 
By argument unto the moment's need — 
I something of the demagogue at soul, 
Half-Alcibiades, Demosthenes, 
If also Plato at the core of me ! 
And therefore is no blasphemy at worst, 
But verily the best mere man may do 
(Whilst combating their soulless Aristotle, 
To waive that worth of Plato they would scorn) 
If God be made a purpose practical 
(The things of Pericles made God's thereby!) 
Unto the reason, practised argument 
And sophistry that fills this people here. 
No doubt a later age may find in him. 
The Stagirite, much inference of a Mind 
Somewhat omnipotent, creative, which 
Folk shall confuse with Him I 'd now proclaim. 
Doubtless the peaceful Platonism in me 
Of reservation beyond earthly strife. 
Of resurrection, what-not after death, 
93 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Shall color as with a jargon of the schools 
My dogma of the God who, also Man, 
Concludeth all, yet scarce is very world : 
Himself a part of it whilst still the whole. 
Yet now I feel me toward the Stagirite 
Hostile who teacheth isolation, mind 
From mind, without a resolution through 
Any divinity inherent in us 
As we are men material here and now, 
Any communion as of charity 
Which maketh universals, each in each, 
By insight and by sympathy, not by 
Analysis of common characters 
As in the scheme abstractive taught of him. 
Plato were more my creed, in truth, save he, too. 
Suffer interpretation misconceived 
(As now these men of Athens would construe 
Amiss the mystery !) of God but name 
For generality abstract and lost 
In ether of the spheres, as are their gods — 
Leaving poor man alone and earth alone 
Disintegrant as in their Stoicism. 
Thus, in default of either of their wisest 
(Opposing Aristotle's soullessness 
94 



PAUL 

Of earth, and God beyond real earth or man ; 
Avoiding Plato's generality 
Of world-salvation through the archetype 
Beyond real reason ; though aifirming through 
Christ the creed's universal applicance), 
So must I make God very practical, 
Complaisant to the motive of their mind, 
Its pseudo-wisdom and its old despair ! 

What was their utmost wisdom ? * Know thyself ' ! 
And what the outcome of much earnest search 
Unguided of the Christ ? Just this at last : 

* The self is atom, item each alone, 

* Indifferently to the wider world 

' Of other selves sustaining each its fate — 

* Body or spirit, Stoic either way ; 

* Epicurean severally, though soul — 

* Imposed by all-soul of the universe 

' As from without. The names we give the gods 

* Are but a man's emotions clothed with false 

* Impersonation in the void of things.' 

There the scheme ends and fails; the gnosticism, 
The boasted system of these men of sense. 
Turns to the nature of that God Unknown 
95 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(The atom, else the generality ; 
Zero or void — who can determine which ? — 
Alike intended of Democritus, 
Zeno, Parmenides, or Socrates ! ) — 
The Known, the Self; because, though miscall'd spirit. 
Regarded as the body (earth, as truth 
All-unregenerate by the syllogism 
Which proves earth false, impossible to proof 
Unless divine in essence !), mere mine or thine ; 
A Christ's that might have died to rise no more ; 
The unity assumed : nothing of God ; 
And thus God-nature, nothing ! — Can a man, 
With such as these to hear and be made convert 
(Keen disputants imbued of paradox. 
Glorying in contradiction if but clean-cut), 
Howe'er he truly scorn their paradox 
Of thee and me ununion'd of a God, 
Talk mystic doctrine ; or hath mystery 
Been long ago to logic-chopping tongues 
Emptied of any than a barren fame ? 
Were that a service unto God, to speak 
Mere esoteric unity-through-Christ 
(As through some All, failing the truth of Self !) — 
Vicarious, for all our faith in it* — 
96 



PAUL 

As I have elsewhere taught it, when to them 
T would seem so stale an outcome, just a myth 
At best of Delphi or Eleusis there ? 
Ah, rather, take Christ as the type of each 
Successful in the knowledge of Himself 
And only therefore centrally of God 
And, as God, savior to the race of men ! 
God is the unity their wisdom lacks, 
'T is true (acceptance of the Self in all 
It knows or feels or hath its being in : 
Self, therefore world-sustainer, Christ or each ! ) — 
'T is true ; nought truer, than God's inmost truth. 
Yet what were God or Christ, were Christ or God 
Not yet of self, nothing of self's own world. 
Unknown as were the fabled Pythian ? — 
It is an instance, then, to lay aside 
All mystery and thus to serve best God 
By making very self-like Him we seek — 
Method of Socrates ; though not, as that one 
By isolative world-analysis 
And negative demarcation, proving self 
Or God alike but that which truth is not ! 
For fact at last is still the truth we seek. 
Still subject of salvation, I or thou 
97 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Saved but by proof that each is yet his world 

And therefore universal and the God. 

It is an instance, then, of * Know Thyself \ 

The God Thou art, not as a myth outworn 

Of hyperhumans, powers impossible 

At war and lust within the world (still less 

Without the world, by Platonism ! ) — but just 

Knowledge, the world as faith self-makes it, shown 

Contain'd within the life of each of men 

So far as wisdom is the life of him 

And holds the world concluded of his strength. 

With this, the truth I see within, I mount 
Fearless and foeless to the speaking-place 
(Their frowns, as not when Socrates stood here. 
Melted to semblance of some courtesy), 
My speech determined in unwonted guise 
To meet this moment : not the Unknown God 
Their superstition and idolatry 
(For so I see their sense, by loftier sense 
Of understanding contravening theirs !), 
'Wilder'd by logic of the Stagirite 
Or dream of Plato, hath reduced to nought ; 
Such as I preach'd, through Christ's authority 
98 



PAUL 

And mystical identity, before 

At Antioch or Salamis ; and such 

As, if without unreasoning faith in Christ, 

Mere negative analysis must rest in, 

If Christ be vicar and not type of each 

Self-savior universalized : but now 

(For 't is my second calling, first to faith 

In blindness, now to wisdom inwardly — 

Mine eyes' affliction serving in good stead!) 

Without least blasphemy, most practical ; 

(Demagogue I, most suited to the time 

And place, so thus most serviceable) : the God 

Of Knowledge, universal world of each — 

Prosper'd, made godly most, by knowledge of it ! 

They question me, asking to hear my truth. — 

** Ye men of Athens, hear me while I speak 
**The God ye ignorantly worship : God ! " 



99 



PETER 

Now is the hour of failure of my life, 

The sinking of the star within my soul 

Which hitherto hath led me and sustain'd 

Through divers tribulations since that night 

Accursed when I did deny Him thrice. 

Since that dark hour of Jesus' earthly death 

Hath Christ in me, the risen Spirit of God, 

Upheld and temper'd with a living strength 

Of infinite salvation : a commission, 

By overflood beyond my need alone. 

To be Apostle, Christ's evangelist 

Unto the saving of the souls of men. 

Till now, hath Christ been power in me ; but now 

I fail, am swoon 'd in spirit, am as though 

Christ had not risen from the dead, but lay 

Still in the tomb as I so fear to lie. 

I am grown old so very suddenly ; 

My limbs half-palsied with the stricken heart 

In panic at the last. The last is come ; 

And I, with what of palsied, frenzied speed 

Remains, am fleeing like a thief in the night 

From Rome, from Nero and a martyr's crown. 

ICX) 



PETER 

I am unworthy of a martyr's crown. 
I flee from glory : utterly unfit. 

The congregation hath for many days 
(Such Sheep as Cesar's savagery hath spared) 
In secret meeting-places pray'd of me 
To make departure, in the name of Christ 
(As Christ permitted to our fmitude) 
Preserving from the persecution this 
Enfeebled body, sorrow-stricken head, 
For new apostlehood in fairer fields 
And less distressful days. I did resist. 
Knowing the cowardice their words awoke 
Within me, feeling that escape was worse 
Than any bodily death. But now I yield me 
Unto temptation irresistible, 
Stampeded by my fear ; and mask that fear 
In resignation to the call of God 
Afar, who dwells no longer in myself 
As erst ! — Could Christ Himself, might He appear. 
Condemn my soul more utterly than I ? 
My limbs swing quavering onward ; but my soul. 
Abject before the judgment-bar of Christ, 
Resists itself ; would turn upon this path 
lOI 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Back to Gehenna were it yawning for me — 
Save that my soul, not yet so shameless-lost, 
Acknowledges no right to martyrdom. 
And therefore must shamefacedly away. 

Yet, were it not some subtler torment still 

Of terror, self-disguised, which I detect 

In this self-condemnation barring me 

From best nobility ? The bodily fear, 

Welcomes it not the abnegation, but 

Because the self-distrust is easier, 

The abrogation of all heavenly hope 

Evades the calling to the cruel cross ? 

Deem'd Christ not (knowing every thought of man) 

Me worthy, as poor sinful men are found 

Faltering and repenting every hour, 

To be His conservator upon earth. 

Holder of mystic keys to ope the door 

Of earth to heaven ; and call'd me by the name 

Cephas, the rock-foundation of the faith ? 

Foresaw He not these dregs of sin in me. 

This fainting of the body ? Yet said He not : 

The soul is willing though the flesh be weak — 

And therefore not unworthy though it sleep 

102 



PETER 

As slept it there in His Gethsemane ? 
I know so surely what Christ's self would do. 
He would be hasting from the ends of earth 
(Could but one soul be saved for God thereby) 
Toward crucifixion here the second time ! 
Perchance Christ hasteth now to save my soul 
Out of the dismal slumber of this night ! — 
Awake, my soul ! Methinks there doth appear, 
Like to quick gleams of dawn athwart the way 
(The hour of dawn is come and cocks do crow 
As once in far-off sad Jerusalem !), 
The spirit of Jesus ! Those, His hands ; and that, 
His white-robed person as from that first tomb 
It rose with angels o'er the sepulchre — 
I saw it not, but feel it was as now ! 
And, there, that burst of morning-shine upon 
The mist of this low country, beams His face : 
Beloved features seen as long ago. 
Though never latterly. And these His feet 
Are stirring in the radiant risen dust ! 

It is the morning and the night is past. 
The day hath purpose of evangel still. — 
Master ! I turn. I know Thou wilt forgive. 
103 



CONSTANTINE 

A CREDIBLE wonder ! * In the sign of the cross, 
* Lo ! thou Shalt conquer ! ' — And destroy I did 
Mine enemy. And all that appertain'd 
Unto his power hath fallen mine appanage. 
And I am Imperator unopposed. 

I am inclined unto the way of Christ 
Without such intervention, knowing well 
The fruit of victory were best a peace, 
The source of peace best found within the soul, 
And the soul best at peace within her world 
When loving most (love, but a sympathy 
Of world-control — as I, being unopposed, 
Am fain to love !) beyond the body's bounds. 
Therefore 1 would not be myself the God 
And worshipp'd of the nations as were needs 
The cult did 1 declare for idol-Rome 
Her priests and deities ; for so myself. 
Being above humanity, were then 
Incapable of sympathy, perverse 
In every action and impolitic, 
Blind to the signs of the times (this cross, the chief !), 
104 



CONSTANTINE 

Regardless of all rights or righteousnesses 
Beyond my person proven in itself 
Alone invaluable ; and my soul 
Were thus confined to dwell within my breast, 
Nor could expand with zeal beneficent. 
Nor do the reascftis of best politic 
Longer allow a God Imperial 
Where now so clear majority of men 
Decline the worship, are recalcitrant 
Even in face of Diocletian's beasts ; 
And plain rebellious where 't were folly quite 
Wantonly to provoke with such demand. 
Nor would I be the Stoic, shut within 
The circuit of his breast, whose idleness 
Of dull indifference vainly would deny 
All vital interest in men's affairs. 
How be as old Aurelius meditating 
Conduct of life as though the life of the world 
Were wholly alien (whilst under his hand 
Men shook and suffer 'd !), when unto mine hand 
Are peoples teeming, and the power of well 
Or ill within the hollow of my palm, 
And daily everything to judge and do 
Pertaining to the conduct of the world 
105 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As 't were my life, as I must feel for it 
And judge for it and wield it as 't were mine ? 
Or how indulge in dream Philonian — 
Platonic, Hermetic, Saccan, who may care ? — 
Of ason-emanation and exile 
(In mystification-subtlety) of God 
From world and world from life, sith all within 
The soul is held but as some gnosis-scheme 
Of Logos-wrought construction, nothing like 
(Nor did Plotinus scare the ghost away, 
For all his intermediacy of worlds !) 
A life where all is opportunity 
And all is opportune unto the soul 
(That takes the trick of opportunity !) 
To see and feel the life of thousand souls 
As one, by sympathy to move and sway 
All purposes and passions to mine own ; 
And thus, by playing the god within the world 
Whilst still man, learn the truth of God-within, 
Not God-beyond, the system of earth-things — 
For thus, I deem, doth Hosius seem to teach, 
Seeking to turn me to the ways of Christ — 
Of Christ, Himself the system, that He be 
In guise a man, unworshipp'd, spat upon 
io6 



CONSTANTINE 

And crucified even because His soul 

Was great beyond the body, and therethrough 

(As may mine in my plenitude of power I) 

Did feel and sympathize with life of men ! 

Such, God should be — a God beyond myself 

(Would I be Christ, to suffer as the God, 

When power with sympathy pertains to kings ?) 

And yet within the working of the world : 

And thus within myself that I shall wield 

Power by fostering, not by opposing, 

('Ware yet to him who sole opposed my mood !) 

The prevalent purposes of many men 

Made thereby loyal subjects.-— What care I 

For heresy, for this new Arius' creed 

(One hears fresh-rumor'd through the scandall'd 

West 
Out of the East of thousand fantasies !) 
Concerning Godhood's man-embodiment, 
Its unity or difference in God — 
When plain I see the purpose through all creeds 
Toward world-religion fit for private life 
Since seated in the soul of all alike 
Who find God in the sympathy with all 
Honest opinion ! —Whence 1 shall announce — 
107 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

When the due time come, and Licinius, 

This Eastern half-Augustus who remains 

'Twixt me and absolute power, shall in turn 

Be ruin'd, and I have leisure then to love 

In way of Christ as Hosius would approve it ! — 

Conversion of the State as of myself 

Unto the Christian teaching : scarce to crush 

The Stoic or the Mystic — let them dream 

Along their ways of life, which shall be safe 

(Save if by men's insistent loud demand 

Their persecution should prove politic ? ) 

Within my bounds of empire ; for they lack 

The worldhood as the Godhood ; and shall pass 

Without mine intervention. And within 

The Christian covenant shall every soul — 

So long as he be quiet citizen — 

Enjoy respect unto his private creed : 

Save only, should majority demand, 

(Surely, for reasons of a quiet State) 

I well might silence him call'd Arius, 

Else him who may oppose him — who may care ? 

Then let the plausible miracle have sway 
Sufficient to enforce within my heart 
1 08 



CONSTANTINE 

Soul's natural propensity, give excuse 
For politic conversion to the creed 
Which seems to bode prosperity and peace 
With power by insight of the hearts of men. 
Unfold the Labarum above the host ! 
* In this sign shalt thou conquer ' — credibly ! 



109 



ATHANASIUS 

Myself against the world ! — that here I stand 
(Though courteous, Caesar's chill magnificence) 
Exiled, alone among the Treviri ! 
Nay, worse, Nicasa's declaration quite 
Betray'd of men ; that I of all alone 
Uphold the truth ; and every man beside 
Of all who dare lift voice and make belief 
Effective, felt within the ways of life, 
Cleave to that Arian error, how our Christ 
Were demi-god, not God essentially ! 
Christ, and is this the working of Thy Word 
That Thou shouldst be betray'd a second time ? 

Christ, and, alas ! this momentary doubt 
Of my poor self against the whole wide world : 
The doubt of my clear vision ! Would Thy care 
E'er have committed truth to me alone ? 
Is it the loneliness, whilst sick at heart 
I mourn in this cold boreal clime our sun 
And sweetness of the Alexandrian air. 
That all-congeals the passion of my soul 
no 



ATHANASIUS 

To mist and dimness and the ice of doubt, 
Deadening faith ? Or doth Thy spirit at last 
Desert Thine instrument of Providence, 
Leaving me naked, inspirationless, 
Defeated and acknowledged desolate. 
Myself in error ; and mine enemies 
(I fancied Thine) but mine triumphantly 
Because within Thy will inscrutable 
Chosen truth-messengers mysteriously ? 
All were as dark, O Christ, if truth were so. 
For me, I could not see, being in wrong ; 
I could not understand this being in wrong 
Because mine error's fault would blind the soul. 
But either way must I have faith in Thee 
For utter Godhead, being by Thy will 
Born as I am to this belief in Thee. 
And, right or wrong, must speak Thy gospel still. 
Whether by plenitude of inward light 
Thy servant, or by plenitude of sin 
Thine anti-Christ self-blinded of the void ! 
Man scarce may know whether the will be free 
Or fated of Thy Providence ; but this 
Too bitterly I know, that, right or wrong, 
Man is but blind unless by grace of Thee 
III 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

His blindness proveth wisdom. But Thy grace 
Extendeth not to me. And lost am I. 



Am not I lost because I never knew 
The grace of moderation, realizing 
Not this dilemma of the blinded flesh ? 
That I but stand more fervently confirm'd 
(By self-deceit, so be it by Thy will ?) 
In hatred of that half-god humanhood 
Their creeds would foist upon Thee (being assured 
By creature-blindness in this human soul — 
Christ save the contradiction ! — Thou couldst ne'er 
Be any compound of humanity 
As such with God ; but that Thy manhood were 
The Godhead through and through and so self- 
known !) — 
That I may never waver in belief 
(To fall, if fall I must, in self-despite), 
Preventeth not this keen soul-scrutiny 
Which showeth other minds as self-deceived 
Doubtless, at best as wholly self-unknown. 
Dependent on Thy grace for right belief, 
As I ; and therefore worth, none less than I, 
The pity and charity wherewith Thy mind 

112 



ATHANASIUS 

Must ever regard this mole-like mind of man. 
To what end Thou might'st misinform Thy seed 
(Nay, rather, permit man's own perversity 
Some want of Thy correction) scarce were theme 
For any mind of man e'er to admit 
Unto his ignorance. Though this at least 
Is sure, that now in ignorance self-known 
Mine ignorance uprears regenerate ; 
Now for the first truly acclaiming Thee ! 
Now for the first truly a man of God, 
A man God-like as Thou art God made Man. 
Thine, Christ, the Gnosis ; ours, the Ignorance : 
Alike in self-acceptance. And, since man 
Hath thereby knowledge of his ignorance. 
Are we, as Thou in Arius' half-creed, 
Each demi-god ; and Arius were right 
If but with our humanity concern 'd ; 
Each man, some incarnation of Thy truth, 
Divine because self-seen in ignorance ; 
Yet human sheerly. And myself were wrong. 
Who fancied Thy Christ-incarnation other 
Than thuswise human wholly in that Thou 
Wast cognizant of being still divine ! — 
What further subtlety were plausible 
113 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Beyond such understanding, by Thy grace, 

As this vouchsafed ? How longer make dispute 

Concerning Thy humanity's degree 

Of Godhood or of humanhood, where both 

Alike are property incorporate 

Of every man ? 'T were but that we, being flesh, 

Achieve this Godhood of self-cognizance, 

Acknowledgment unto ourselves (by grace 

Of Thee) of this our ignorance inborn ; 

Whereas Thy Godhood, for the sins of the world 

In ignorance conceived, didst take upon Thee 

The partiality of innocence ; 

That, by the spectacle of innocence 

Godly in perfect self-acknowledgment, 

Might men discover in themselves the seed 

Of Thy divinity — as I to-day. 

What further subtlety were possible ? 

Yet, Christ, perchance, in these cool boreal lands — 

Who knows ? — where passion warps not, but the 

sight 
Within were at the acme, and the man. 
Imbued with confidence of innocence, 
In natural exaltation might assume 
World-comprehension quite without Thy grace — 
114 



ATHANASIUS 

A comprehension wantonly supposed 
Of wisdom, not of selfish ignorance — 
To such a man might not this doctrine seem, 
To-day which I inherit and achieve. 
Some warrant to degrade in parity 
Thy manhood to my manhood, thus to mock 
Thee with assumption of a full divine 
For man, as Thou assumedst humanity ? 
Pardon the wanton word ! Yon Arius 
Degradeth Thee not as would such a man 
(And till this hour had I but been as he 
In crass self-confidence — though spared his 

folly!) 
By such apotheosis of his kind ! 
For within such an arrogance might no law 
(For no humility would look for it !) 
Of logic countervene still to maintain 
Distinction intervening as reveal'd 
Between Thee and Thy people ne'ertheless. 

Therefore, O Lord, unto Thy revelation 
I still appeal against this Arian world. 
Not unto logic ratiocinant 
Nor unto grace of comprehension ; but 
115 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

To faith in revelation ! That alone 

(Ay, plain I feel it in this moment's need) 

Can save our ignorance from claim at last 

To perfect parity with truth of Thee 

And with Thy wisdom, Godhood. — Thus, O 

Christ, 
Alone in Treviri my soul appeals 
Not more to argument which leads too far 
For safety of poor human ignorance 
(Scarce to a Caesar, seem he ne'er so kind !) 
But, to transfiguration : Christ reveal'd — 
Thy revelation, against Arius ! 



ii6 



AUGUSTINE 

It is not that I too well knew the sweets 
Of the old false way (he my natural son 
Adeodatus was some proof of them !); 
But rather that this tumult at the walls, 
This thunder of the Vandal horde's attack, 
Hath meaning and prejudgment of a new 
Wise order founded in the way of Christ 
As over against the way of heathen gods 
Which we, though followers and folk of Christ, 
Must represent and still uphold in the breach 
Against God's Genseric ! I little heed 
(Though in itself his error kill the soul I) 
That he profess — for thus the rumor runs — 
Fiercely that heresy of Arius 
The anomoean — as I still less heed 
That I, the staunch supporter of the truth, 
Held mysteries Manich^an in those days 
Of youth-perversity and carnal lust. 

For none less I stand representative 
Of Rome imperial, the Christless State, 
117 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The City not of God though Christ's in name. 
And he no less, though nominally none 
Of Christian principle, denying Christ's 
Incarnate Godhood by declaring Him 
Created if divine — he, Genseric, 
But battles in the cause of order new. 
Destroying that the Lord may build again 
On a clean field when we unworthy both, 
And all unworthy that are men with us 
Alive, lie swept from out the path of God ; 
And God's own City may itself arise 
Perchance on earth even as now on high. 
Thus much were my conviction which the mind 
Must cling to for some comfort : I must fall 
And with me all mine African great Church 
For Christ's sake and in Christ's name, over- 

whelm'd 
'Neath armed heresy that burns and slays 
By mercy Providential, knowing none. 
Such the sole comfort : that God's wisdom rules 
In worst disaster ! — And this human heart 
Is sore and sorrowing and self-ashamed, 
Saying unto the God who calleth me 
Soon to His presence as this weak frame yields 
ii8 



AUGUSTINE 

Worn-out with years — saying to God : * I heed 
* Indeed the lesson ; but mine heart is sore.' — 

O thou great City of Christ in Africa 
For whose establishment mine earnest years 
With voice and hand and screed devotedly 
Have struggled and attempted in the name 
Of God's Word and the Will of Him who died ! 
O thou, God's grace upon the face of earth, 
Earth's inspiration faith-fill'd, leading on 
Each member of the body politic. 
Each person of the City of Earth, in God 
From grossness of the carnal lust and strife 
Toward peace of heavenly perfectedness — 
Thou Church ! — to see thee perish utterly 
Even as I faint and am not swift to save ; 
Even as I pass and never may return 
To be thy builder and renew thy strength ! 
Verily, verily the heart is sore 
(O Lord, forgive the old man full of days !). 
Ah ! to see all the faithful stricken down. 
Blinded and scourged, robb'd, ravish'd, and enslaved, 
The bishop and the presbyter, the flock 
Shepherded of them, one and all betray'd 
119 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Unto the ravening of the Vandal wolves ! 

And to desert my people at the last, 

Myself to steal away unto my God 

Whilst they my people suffer at the maw 

Of Genseric, I leaving them alone ; 

Evading as a traitor from the world : 

Entering lone into felicity ! 

And to reflect that, most of all, our woes 

Have come of too keen controversial 

Dispute, dividing peoples patriot else 

(Nay, placing dogma and our discipline 

Above all civil duty), and thereby 

Denuding provinces of self-defence ; 

In name of such and such a pettiest point 

Of doctrine persecuting ruthlessly. 

When all by some complacent compromise, 

Haply as close to truth as either creed 

(I being in error acknowledged, many times !), 

Had saved strength for the struggle to sustain 

Life of the Church against this Vandal death ! 

And I have been chief controversialist 

Through all my days — O Lord, the heart is sore ! 

Forgiveness, Christ ! Did not Thyself, as now 

120 



AUGUSTINE 

Thy Church, but perish that this world might live ? 

Did not Thy death ensure to all mankind 

The freedom of God's City (by Thy Grace 

Against our all-demerit) ? And shall now 

Thy Church, so wholly Thine, perish in vain ? 

What are the failures of the private man, 

Mine errors multifold upon me proved, 

But fair successes in the Plan of God, 

Points in procedure of His Providence ? 

Surely, of human sin original 

Accumulated through the thousand years 

Of Rome and Godlessness, am I but God's 

Exemplar, and the Church that was my work 

But instance of the worthlessness of man 

Who builds for earth without full faith that God 

Will alter earth after His own behest 

Nor heed our disappointment ! Let mine heart 

Be sore, that in its bitterness be proved 

The impotence of dreams Pelagian 

(Asserting man's too-independent power 

Of self- regeneration by good- will !) 

Which I opposed, but in opposing made. 

By my too-sure assertion of the truth. 

Mine own ! Ay, Lord ! let then mine heart be sore ! — 

121 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Let then mine heart be sore ; that Genseric 

May blindly represent Thee, wreak Thy will 

On Rome's inherited philosophies, 

Her dogmas and denials, sophisms all, 

Pagan or Christian — and myself have been 

Chief churchman of their sophists ! In the world 

Is all Thy will. As now unto Thy will 

And to the City of God on earth, the Church 

Of faith beyond denial, I resign 

My Bishophood. — For I have known the sweets 

Of the old false way : and the heart is sore. 



122 



AVERROES 

WHAT though the Caliph and the questioners 
Condemn ? Shall that affect philosophy ? 
Shall the religion of the common mind 
Reprove mine Aristotle ? He, be it sure, 
Were scarce fit food for zealot-ignorance ! 
The culture of the highest were no cure 
For crude fanaticism ! At their complaint 
Thus much I may admit. —But none the less 
Is the religion of the Prophet nought 
Considerable to the cultured mind ; 
Nowise respectable to reasoning ! 
Let their Mohammed in his purblind zeal 
Control and guide them, fervently enough 
If quite inconsequently, in a way 
Of rectitude sufficient to their wants. 
But let them not presume to teach me creeds 
Contrary to my reason, when the mind 
Under that guidance of the Stagirite 
Hath earnestly achieved, beyond their ken, 
A knowledge of the universal law 
Whereto the Prophet is as nothingness.— 
Mohammed, for the ignorant who need 

123 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

A sign and symbol ; but the Stagirite, 

In perspicacity of intellect 

Preceptor to the cultured : such the way 

Of compromise ! I never meant to teach 

The universe of lore impersonal 

Unto their passionate vulgarity ; 

And do regret vulgarity was taught 

Truths beyond comprehension of the crowd, 

Hence to their blindness false. But, for myself. 

Never will I retract ; and I defy 

Caliph and questioners to do their worst 

In name of ignorance. Philosophy 

Shall still sustain me even unto death ! 

Never will I retract ; but fain would seek 
Still further insight of the ways of truth 
Absolute and unquestionable ! Yet, 
How strange the schism, how lone this intellect 
(Supposed an universal ope ranee 
Of truth alike in every man of men !) 
In segregation from the fond belief 
Of thousands of our people ! Them I 've judged 
For right and wrong, doom'd them to weal or woe 
On plain assumption of some common ground 
124 



AVERROES 

Self-evident and cognizable alike 
By clown or Cadi, of a moral law 
Applicable, with grade but of degree, 
To child or Caliph — yet at length I find me 
An old man isolate, assail'd by all, 
If so be, that my cognizance transcends 
In kind as in degree their ignorance. 
And leaves me with my Stagirite alone. 
Gnostic of God's eternal scheme of things 
Whereof not one of thousands round me here, 
These citizens and priests of Cordova 
(Themselves components one and all alike 
As soul-partakers in God's intellect), 
Hath any inkling ; every intellect. 
Save mine, all-unenlighten'd of the truth 
Which constitutes them and they constitute ! 
And thus must I resort to doctrine scarce 
Compatible with any universe 
Of law-wrought intellect, but in itself 
Too like their crude religion : how the mind 
Of them who with my reason disagree 
May scarce at all partake of final truth. 
But rightly rests whence none may hope to lift 
Unto the light ; I, in mine arrogance, 
125 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Missing that fair solution which might teach 
Salvation to the ignorant and still 
(Not, as their error, by Mohammed's creed) 
Achieve truth-satisfaction ! Compromise 
Or no, must my philosophy provide 
Religion in the very terms of truth, 
Knowledge in passionate belief ; else fail 
For me, for them alike. For life is so, 
Passionate in and through the Gnosis, still 
Cognizant though the blood with faith be mad ! 
Wherein have I then by philosophy 
Miss'd the religion ; wherein doth their creed 
Show possibility of competence 
Unto the standard of a tested truth ? 
For, were their ignorant zeal some adumbration 
But of a system they would fain believe ; 
And were my consciousness of cosmic law 
But applicable to each actual fact 
Of personal experience (not as now 
Too subtly academfc), how might we 
But reach some fair agreement, none the worse 
Of logic or devotion, for the new 
World-reconciliation ? And without 
Such reamalgamation might the world 
126 



AVERROES 

Well be regarded as no universe 
Substance of law nor subject of a faith ! 

What, then, the requisite ; that faith like theirs 
Might truly mean an Aristotle's lore 
Adequate to an universe whose God 
Can scarce be but as Caliph overruling 
The human populace by Cadi's voice 
(Mohammed, but some Cadi speaking under 
A Caliph, not of Cordova, Bagdad, 
Forsooth, yet governing from aether-throne) ? 
What truth, perchance within the reach of all, 
Might yield unto the world eternity 
In place of some creation ; to the soul 
Universality in place of death 
And judgment-doom imagined of their creed ? 
And, of my part, what liberality 
Of emphasis within the scheme of truth 
Learn'd of the Stagirite might bring my law 
To daily application and infuse 
Enthusiasm of a moral creed 

Within the serious teaching ? — Ay, what more true 
Than just this yearning of mine intellect 
To search and reach unto a loftier plane 
127 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Than any yet achieved, that therein may 
My loneliness have solace and my lore 
Illumine their religion that it prove 
Consonant with philosophy ? What fact 
Of faith more patent than their striving toward 
Personal satisfaction in some sight 
Of system, order, though their order be 
Too much anthropomorphic ? Were the truth 
Even as the faith a fair development 
Out of the mind-indifferent physic-fact 
Toward ever yet more universalness 
Of implication, whilst, within the growth. 
Grows and keeps pace the person — that our passion 
And faith-enthusiasm shall nowise fade 
Into mere law-sublation, more than shall law 
Resolve itself to ignorant caprice : 
Were such the reconciliation 'twixt 
Their faith, my knowledge : then philosophy 
Were some religion, and the crudest creed 
Incident to truth-involution ! Such 
An universe of growth (here speaks again 
The exhaustless Aristotle !) would incite 
A truth of passion and a faith of law 
In the perpetual striving whereof each, 
128 



AVERROES 

As each is in degree sane and aware, 

Intendeth truth, believeth in a law, 

Impassionate and saving, none the less 

Provable universal and in God, 

By dint of yearning, ever satisfied 

Without creation by a cause beyond 

Nor ultimate absorption in the Goal ; 

But as from first eternal endlessly ! 

Thus were such world (of them and me at odds) 
Nevertheless one single systeming 
(Whereby my system were for them not false 
But merely as more-than-true beyond their souls) 
Of truth according to the Stagirite. 
For in the physic-fact original 
Lay bedded a conatus which within 
Almansor or myself, Ibn Roshd, alike 
By satisfaction-seeking is the truth, 
The law, the unity of intellect 
(Self's implication of the souls of all) 
And Godship to the humblest : all alike 
By yearning God ward, thus themselves the God 
Operant through the stuff primordial 
Of individuation ! Though I need 
Myself no God beyond such operance 
129 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(Still less, the mere moon-motive put between 

Heaven and earth, the Godhead and the Man !), 

May he, the Caliph or the questioner, 

Require Mohammed and some asther-throne 

Without belying Godhood in himself, 

Without disjunction from philosophy. 

And therefore may their crude religious cult 

(Achieving ample rectitude for them) 

Be humanly considerable within 

My teaching learn 'd now of the Stagirite ! — 

Never will I retract. But yet my truth 
Comporteth with a fair acknowledgment 
(In this so late- won world-enthusiasm) 
Even of a truth which by interpretance 
I predicate as sure achievement of 
Their seeming ignorance. And I may well 
(Should persecution finally compel it ! ) 
Avow their Prophet, and be saved thereby 
From shameful death, but sully not my soul ! 
Haply, and teach afresh this more-than-truth 
Unto their want-of -truth ; and lead them on, 
By means of mere religion, Godwardly ! 



130 



AQUINAS 

The flesh indeed is weary, though command 

Of Pope unto the Council calleth me. 

This bulk indeed is weary ; yet the spirit 

Must acquiesce though death itself ensue 

Of the arduous journey. Whence, expecting death 

(Though fearing not the least, and only sad 

That God through Pope and Council doth demand 

Cessation of my labors ere the Sum 

Of all Theology be tabulate), 

May I one last redaction make in mind 

Of my vast effort in the name of Faith 

Which Reason warrants, this my ponderous work 

Which open lies before me. For the spirit 

Hath strength still and desire to speak the truth 

Best, perfected, ere all my speech be done. — 

Of God, of Man, and of the God-in-Man, 
The Summa Theologice, the whole 
Of human wisdom or the best of it. 
Quintessence, at the worst, of every truth ! 
The Summa Theologies, man's Reason 
At service of the Faith, man's Faith directing 
131 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The operation of a logic-law. 
For, as the God is other than His world 
Whilst yet its Cause Efficient ; whilst the world 
Is otherwise than God, yet work of Him 
And God-appetitive : so yet our Reason 
Hath appetite of Faith ; and Faith is cause 
Of all our proof's discourse. No skill can prove 
To Reason-satisfaction aught of truth 
Without Faith ; nought of Faith can be conceived 
Save as by process of the intellect : 
Even as, within the province of our thought 
Are universals individuated 
By fact-material within the form 
Specific-spiritual ; the genera. 
Although to human mind unthinkable 
Save individuate, none less py law 
Of spiritual entity believed 
To be angelic, emanate of God, 
And from within dominant of our dreams 
Of personal independence, by control 
Of the mere body; our spiritual part — 
Without all person as we know of person 
Within the world — by grace nevertheless 
Of God's predestinance (misunderstood 
132 



AQUINAS 

And not intelligible save to Faith) 

Destined to individuance supreme 

Whilst death destroys our individual. 

Even thus doth Reason (by our intellect) 

Prove of its own known insufficiency 

The final perfecting achieved by Faith 

In high theology. And here the Sum 

Of all Theology would stand portray'd 

With scheme of God and Man and, for the last 

And best (to reconcile the miracle), 

The God-in-Man, the Christ upon our earth, 

God's intermediary and the world's. 

Angel within the body, guardian 

Of the truths unthinkable preserved for men 

Till death release and open eyes of Faith 

To comprehend as now we dimly feel : 

Christ, the true demiurge, the compromise 

And come-between, required of our mind 

For comprehension of the worldliness 

Of God or Godliness within the world : 

Our intellect's salvation. Reasoning Faith ! 

Yet (might a mere man dare transgress the bounds 
Of Reason's fmitude, and, trespassing 
133 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

On Faith, without Faith dare envisage truth 
As Christ may, and pronounce of right or wrong 
By logical insistence on the ways 
Of premise and conclusion !) how might he 
(Such heretic blasphemer !) dream a scheme 
Unlike the true scheme of our Reason-Faith 
Yet sprung of Faith-in-Reason, making world 
Some God-in-Man, as even now is Christ 
Best explanation of the world He saves ? 
I tremble at the subtlety, ashamed 
At such temptation. Yet some power within 
Impels me and allures to try with test 
Of intellect alone the things of Faith 
In shame-faced half-apology to God 
(As Jesus Christ without apology 
In terms of intellect might prove the Faith 
Some merely natural Reason of Himself!) 
Prying into the mysteries conceal'd — 
For all that Revelation we conceive ! — 
Of spiritual being. Will not God 
Forgive, nor Aristotle disapprove 
One who but keenly as the Stagirite 
(With Reason sanctified in Christ, for Faith !) 
Searcheth the Revelation, as the Greek 
134 



AQUINAS 

Search'd but the natural knowledge of the soul ? 
Will God forgive a Stagirite in Christ 
Whose Reason, waiving Faith, is more than Faith ? 
And must not any search conclude at last 
In Christ ; and need the Christian be afraid ? 
But, ha ! were not the Reason's stumbling-block 
And Faith-compulsion just this fact of Christ 
Supposed the mediary demiurge 
Partaking of both natures, God and Man ? 
Himself the intercessionary aid 
In that dilemma of the infinite 
At touch with finite : God, cause of a world ? 
Yet, with the goal of logic-in-the-Faith 
So clear before me, let me logically 
Without recourse to Faith prove both of God 
And Man that sans Christ's intermediacy 
Were neither God nor Man as God and Man 
Must be conceived unto our intellect 
If they be verily truth-known at all 
For finite-infinite as Christ is known. 
Though yet, what revolution in the ways 
Of premise and conclusion, of our proof 
Itself, if so be Christ be provable 
Unto our Reason, as without a Faith, 
135 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

For actual truth of body, both, and soul ! 
What alteration of the scheme of truths 
Divine or human, as the human soul 
Might comprehend the intercession new ! 
But shows not Christ supremely thinkable 
(Example of the perfect natural life 
Of Man in the world at unison with God — 
If sinful none, yet humanly as finite !) 
Without resort to Faith in any kind : 
Himself that very form-material, 
That spiritual-body, genus-fact 
Of individual specific still 
Because divine, personal yet and owning 
A world relational of membership 
Whereof the Christ-identity in flesh 
Were finite member, but which as a world 
Were nought than Christ's inferr'd pragmatical 
Being, as Christ is conscious of the whole 
Within His sympathy, and died therefor ? 
What ultimate Reason, shorn indeed of Faith 
Yet needing none ; solving antinomy 
Of finite-infinite (scarce by pantheism. 
But by pan-Christhood !), of God and the world 
Which otherwise were noway reconciled ; 
136 



AQUINAS 

Solving the mystery not as I deem'd 
Through mediation merely — which would yield 
But duplication of the paradox 
Of infinite from finite still demark'd 
Within Christ's person and none less within 
Relation of the God or world to Him — 
Not merely by intrusion as between 
Two partialities, but by conclusion 
Of both, sublate, in Christhood ; so, by proving 
Christ-intermediary but a name 
For God or world rightfully understood, 
Self-comprehended by the all-seeing soul 
Of Faith-transcendent logic : how no world 
Might be, save if in every membership 
Infinitely completed and inferr'd 
Interminably through all membership 
From each self-focus personal of truth ; 
And therefore in each membership divine, 
Howe'er by postulate's hypothesis 
Also all-human and a work-created 
Indeed ! How no God (spare the blasphemy !) 
Might be, save personal and therefore part 
Of His own handiwork, explaining it 
As He is self-explain 'd in terms of truth 
137 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Worldwise, and known in every truth as Christ ! 

Thus far, for Reason working without Faith 

Unto expression of an hyper- Faith 

By logic : no mere exclusion, yea and nay. 

Which by the choice 'twixt two coordinates 

(Truth and untruth !) by severating them 

Selectionwise obliterates to nought 

Even the supposed distinction ; but a proof 

Conclusive of each part as also whole 

By differential inference, by oneness 

In virtue of an incoordination 

Final, nowise selective inter se 

To indetermination, but distinctly 

This and all others, positive-negative 

United, infinite and finite both ; 

Christ only ! — world and God alike but name 

For truth's two aspects ; intermediation 

In propria persona, God-and-Man : 

Who neither, save in Christ, were Man or God, 

World or Creator ; but in Christ are so ! 

Lo ! by the Faithless logic stands approved 
The very mystery which Faith alone 
Can but propound, which Reason led by Faith 
138 



AQUINAS 

Can but pronounce by miracle achieved 
And best accepted without questioning ; 
Yet which the Reason, freed of fear for Faith, 
Proudly elaborates to perfect proof 
And solvent-satisfaction ! How might I 
Justify then the angelologism 
Of demiurge interpolate between 
A God and world, a sheer Faith and a Reason, 
A genus and an individual ; 
When in fair truth are God and Man alike, 
World or the World-Creator, person or 
Species, incomprehensible save as 
Themselves the demiurge, the God-in-Man, 
The genus-individual, the person 
Yet comprehensive of a fact without 
Which scarce were fact save as we reason of it, 
Which scarce were truth save for the soul that sees ? 
How justify the Christ call'd mystery 
(All being but Christ in that we reason of Him, 
And thereby in persona mediate 
Ourselves 'twixt any God or world whate'er — 
Which were not severally God nor world*!) 
Save on assumption of a God, a world 
Separate and irreconcilable 
139 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

By any Christhood — as my proof hath shown ? — 
Alas ! for this my Theologice 
Summa ! I may not work upon it more 
Until the Faith return in which I wrought 
Blindly perchance, but reverently far 
Beyond this mood of Reason-frowardness 
Wherein this hour hath moved me to blaspheme ! 
Alas ! for this mine undertaking ! Christ, 
Canst Thou allow that any truth of Thee 
Shall come to nought, that any labor'd love 
Of God, felt humbly as the child might feel 
God's inspiration, shall in blasphemy 
End and be self-destroy'd ? Perchance mankind 
May take the labor and the law of Faith, 
The love-humility, and let it lie 
For proof of inspiration — nor perceive 
The rational induction as from Christ 
His comprehension and example shown 
Self-cogitant beyond all mystery 
(Impertinence unfit for merely man !) ; 
The logic-inference of Faith-less lore. 
This hour hath shown me ? There the Summa lies 
Unfmish'd, never from my hand and heart 
To receive sentence more ; for fear my fall 
140 



AQUINAS 

May self-betray upon the patient page 
The intellect's rebellion unawares ! 
There the work lies. And I must undertake 
My journey to the Council to defend 
Our Christianity ; though heresy 
Gnaw at mine heart, and fain would I be dead 
Liefer than bear dispute where soul herself 
Hath died down unto embers with the weak'ning 
Of my vast body strangely sick to death. 
Rather a death upon the arduous road, 
Though sick at soul beside and self-despairing 
Of any absolution, than blaspheme 
In folly of dispute where no belief 
Gives basis to the assertion. Fondly, Lord ! 
I pray Thee, bless this journey with release 
By death ; that, ere the Council, shall mine eyes 
Of Faith re-open, and my blasphemy 
End with some resurrection ! E'en though flame 
Of Hell receive my spirit, yet, O Lord ! 
Compel not to the public sacrilege 
Of double-tongued dispute ! My Summa lies 
A monument at least of piety, 
An edification to the centuries. 
Grant, in the name of this, release by death ! 
141 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Grant for the sake of labor wrought in love 
That no exposure ruin that I writ 
In humble service of Thy mystery, 
But which in weakness of my body now 
To blasphemy have secretly betray'd ! 



142 



LUTHER 

A MIGHTY stronghold is our Lord of Hosts, 
A refuge and a very present help 
In time of trouble. — Were this Wartburg sure 
Without God's guardance and my trust in Him ? 
God guardeth best those that have trust in Him. 

God's guardianship by this my trust in Him ! 
These move the world anew, these shake the towers 
Of thousand Wartburgs that have not my faith. 
The fabrics of the works of many men 
Burst unto dust but by my living faith. 
Saint Thomas and the Schools, bishop and Pope 
Blind to the beauty of sweet Augustine, 
Awake at the word of one poor recreant priest 
Teutonic, ay, titanic by a faith. 
' I can no more. God help me.' — And in that 
Word's intimate reliance came the light, 
The truth's assurance. And I turn'd and stepp'd 
A little from them into God's sunshine 
And Germany's free country ; and am free, 
Free of the spirit limitless in God, 
Though of my body and my body's works 
143 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Incarcerated by a patron^s care 

Lest harm befall. I cheerfully allow 

The imprisonment that so the soul stay free ; 

Concealment, that the world through me may 

know 
God's wonderworking by faith's grace alone ! 

Doubtless the way of man is daily work. 
God's grace vouchsafeth not where gluttony, 
The battening of lone convented folk 
Burdens the laboring brethren of the field 
Or sweating city or the mining-pit 
To the support of idle sluts and drones. 
Doubtless the way is work, as I shall show 
By fair example set in God's good time, 
Laboring, wedding, fathering stalwart sons 
And daughters to be ministers of God 
In the world and vessels of His faith and grace. 
Surely the way is work, mistake me not, 
Ye future freely working humankind, 
For any apostle of an idleness ! 
Yet are the works of man but vanity 
By sin original, the ways of man 
A mockery against the ways of God, 
144 



LUTHER 

Save faith transcend the paltry falling-short, 
Trust in the universal rule of truth 
(Truth, valent but by belief the all-powerful !) 
Absolve the error, and our penitence 
Be perfect triumph, not by merit earn'd 
Of scourge and penance, but by assurance, through 
Christ's intercession and the heart of God 
(That intercession and that heart within me) 
Compassionate of His lost handiwork. 
Assurance of salvation unto those 
Who wholly love and suffer — and are glad. 
For thus is penance privately entail'd, 
A contriteness of spirit, a pact between 
The soul and God, man's proper stand of soul 
In the presence compassionate though awful yet 
Of Him his maker : not a rule imposed 
Extrinsic of interpretance by phrase 
Of Peter or the Pope's usurping screed. 
The Bull of Pope's-indulgence were as nought ; 
The strict monastic discipline no source 
Of purification, save the church- within, 
The cloister of confession in the heart, 
Impose the ordinance, to show all men 
The power in grace that trust hath o'er the soul. 
145 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

God's guardianship is but my trust in Him, 
The power in grace that faith hath o'er the soul ! 

Nay, do I hear detractors who exclaim : 

* A thousand churches for a thousand men 

* This Martin fain would build : no Church at all 
' Compelling, overruling, yielding peace 

* By questionless authority — a man, 

* This Luther, who would substitute for God 

* On earth in the Church the passion-rule of self, 

* Discord and chaos come again.' How now ? 
I answer : * Where the way of each is right 

* In personal cognizance of the voice of God 

* Can come but concord, an accord of each 

* In his mere time and place with timeless, whole 

* Ordinance and establishment beyond 

' The petty understanding of the mind ! ' 
(Ah ! dared I say : * Yet human none the less, 

* Yet temporal in mine eternal soul ' !) — 
Thus will a Church arise, not consecrate 
To scarce-disguised idolatries, not back'd 
By fiction, legends of a spirit-world 

Man scarce hath seen, and lived ; but ordered in 
Community of purpose to oppose 
146 



LUTHER 

Presumption, blasphemous assumption of 

God*s office on the part of any man 

Over his fellows, each of whom by grace 

Of faith is godly (and no God beside 

In the world save operant as healing faith) — 

Community of protest to be free 

And worship, each communicant, by joy 

Of the inward light, howe'er it come to him, 

Perfervid, wholesome, stalwart, practical 

Through the world of God which is the world of men 

And women, vessels of His faith and grace. 

O bountiful earth-nature ! Field and sky, 
Clouds and the forest-clouds upon the face 
Of the field as heaven ! O toilers in my sight, 
Women and men providing, from the field 
And forest, sustenance to rear your young. 
Sinews of faith and grace ! O, hear ye me ! — 
This Wartburg falleth as the works of men 
Must ever fall. Yet, firm by providence 
Of Him who made me, by zeal of him who put me 
A prisoner here assured for safer times — 
Nay, through my faith ! — this Wartburg still shall 
stand 

147 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

When all save God and soul are pass'd away : 
A stronghold by the guardance of our God — 
By faith of the spirit — symbol on earth of God 
Stronghold ; high Refuge ; very Present Help ! 



148 



LOYOLA 

Ay, ad major em Dei gloriam, 
His splendor in the world as evidenced 
In Peter's power through the See of Rome, 
And in preferment of this Company, 
Mine Order and myself creator of it ! 
Unto that end all means are profitable 
And righteous whatsoever, if the end 
But best be served : a logic practical, 
An ethic Macchiavellian (Christ save 
Its pagan perpetrator!), sane, self -proved. 
And to that end is much self-evident 
Of ways and method organizing men : 
All to be builded of obedience. 
Blind substitution of command for cause, 
Discipline overruling reason ; yea. 
Conscience obliterate in servitude ? — 
Amen ! Were any conscience other than 
Acknowledged servitude to rules of right ? 
Might any rules of right stand more confirm 'd. 
Establish 'd beyond perad venture, than 
Decretals of the very Vicar of Christ 
(Christ but the Vicar of God), and thus through him 
149 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Orders, commands of each superior 
From General down to novitiate — 
Straight substitute for God where otherwise 
Were little leading and no feeblest light— 
As evidence Hussites and Lutherans ? 

Thus I establish it : obedience 
In furth'rance of the greater glory of God 
On earth, obedience without any let 
Nor hindrance of conviction personal 
Beyond conviction that to serve is right. 
Thus I establish it to high and low 
Of the Company — yet what of mine own self ? 
What of the least of them, stood he as I 
Commanding, without book to bind behest, 
Freely, dependent upon God alone 
Who speaks not plainly, leads by little light 
And suffers interpretance equivocal ? 
Am I obedient, or were such an one, 
Below me, but obedient who stood 
Suddenly faced of some fresh circumstance 
Not fair foreseen, not pre-provided for? 
Can conscience (and originality 
Be requisite I) be,. after all, the source 
150 



LOYOLA 

Of truth and best for service even of God ? 
For, lo ! if every means be justified 
That leadeth to God's end, what surety 
Save conscience can convince (my case at least) 
Of purity of purpose, 'propriateness 
Of circumstance and accident unto 
The goal and substance — what but reasoning faith 
(Not blind obedience !) can assure the soul 
Of justification unto any end, 
Of true fulfilment of the perfect plan 
Itself : major em Dei gloriam ? — 
Lay I not sick in anguish many days, 
A warrior not yet dedicate to God, 
But fiH'd of the fume of the camp, and ignorant 
In every line of learning ; when upon me 
There came a call of conscience, not of man, 
And bade me unto vigils and the oath 
Of Mary : that chastity and poverty 
Which hath been in my case sufficient to 
The saintly life — beyond obedience ? 
Have I not many years by diligent zeal 
As student late in life amass'd in mind 
The myriad lore of universities. 
Making myself as teacher unto men, 
151 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Inditing with a wisdom sorely earn'd 
The spirit-regimen that makes of man 
(By vigil, apparition, visual trance) 
Best devotee, most valued proselyte 
Of the Order, Fellow of my Company ? 
And hath this life-career been otherwise 
Than instigate of conscience thoroughly 
Without obedience to any man. 
But rather in face of all authorities 
Compelling even Pope and Holy See 
To slow acceptance of the proffer'd help, 
Reluctant permit to be serviceable ? 
Thus have I wrought, without obedience, 
Better than had I been obedient 
To any call my conscience disapproved : 
Conscience, that sense of universal right, 
Of God, within the individual soul ! 
And am I otherwise than other men ? 

With that interrogation stands or falls 
The Company of Jesus. It must stand ! — 
I, then, am otherwise than other men, 
Not subject to the law I needs impose 
On other men unto the glory of God. 
152 



LOYOLA 

Unique am I ; to other men, as God 
To me ; as soul to body (no Pope himself — 
Elective, not soul-chosen — were as I 
Christ's representative!); and men must be 
Obedient to my precepts to serve Christ 
And me who serve best Christ by ruling them. 
All were as Hussites and as Lutherans 
Alike who lack'd this special light of law 
Which, emanate from God within my soul, 
Is conscience within me, but unto them 
Command imperative. The vow shall stand 
A sign unto the ages ; servitude 
Made glorious : questionless obedience 
Even unto death and sin — the sin absolved 
By my transcendence who pronounce all sin 
Committed by command but righteousness. 
Upbuilding this our Company, upholding 
The See of Rome to greater glory of God. 
So let the justification be by works. 
Corroborative of the theorem. 
Let results speak and prove what-means-soe'er 
Appropriate to the end approved of God 
Toward making men wholly God's puppetry. 
And (as mine Order shall absorb mankind) 
153 



POEMS. OF PERSONALITY 

Myself shall be (in humblest reverence, 
I dare to trust) the last and greatest Man, 
Creator of the sainthood militant : 
Myself, prime Saint without inheritor. 



154 



XAVIER 

The Goans and the Cochinese have been 
And poor pearl-seekers of the Fishing Coast 
Chiefly my field of labor under God 
Since first from Lisbon on these sapphire seas 
I voyaged, obedient to my General 
Loyola, loyal to the call of Christ. 
Here of these glistening Indies hath my work 
Prosper'd and brought prosperity of soul 
Unto these simple folk, dark-skinn'd, soft-voiced, 
Who needed only Christ and Christian faith. 
The tongue of truth and leading unto God 
To be so easily heart-taught and saved — 
So easily that some must e'en misconstrue 
My modest ministry for miracle ! 
By hundreds or by thousands may I count 
The sheep of this new pasture : not enough 
Where millions, daily cowering, wail before 
Dark idols in sick-smelling champak wreaths 
And withering jasmines ; not enough where bells 
Harsh-jangled and the fume of bitter blood 
From burnt flesh-offering, faugh ! human and beast 
Offend God's nostril and annoy His ear. 
155 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The Goans and the Cochinese in part 

Or poor pearl-seekers of the Fishing Coast 

I count among Christ's children. What of those 

Whom only want of opportunity, 

The chance prevention of enlightenment 

(For chance it seems, howe'er ordain'd of God !), 

Benights and dooms at death as here on earth 

Unto some Hell of dusk idolatry ? 

There are who do entreat the dark-of-skin 
As by necessity the dark-of-soul, 
Forgetful of that ^Ethiopian 
Whom Philip did baptize ; and of this proof. 
If proof were needed, now of Malabar. 
Not so doth God who sendeth me to save 
Through grace of Christ the sinners dark of skin 
Proven less dark of soul than many a man 
Cradled beneath the bounty of the Babe ! 
And yet the grave perplexity remains 
Of ignorance and wickedness foredoom 'd 
In these God's folk-potential save for my 
Fortuitous advent, insufficient zeal 
Which scarce sufiiceth for one millionth part 
Of men's salvation, in these Indies now 
156 



XAVIER 

Alive, and toucheth nothing of those, dead 
Since Christ, yet unforewarn'd of pains of Hell ! 
Doth God, though leading through Ignatius' word 
And my obedience, suffer yet His sheep 
To wait the chance of men's infirmity 
(My constancy at proof ; my health, perchance. 
Subject to every tropical unease) 
For soul-salvation or eternal death ? 
Doth God set man, myself, a task without 
Limit or possibility wherethrough 
Alone by infinite accomplishment, 
Executance instantaneous, might I 
Acquit me worthily, achieve in God 
Aught adequate to human righteousness ? 
The mystery seems irresolvable : 
I, honestly devoted, doom'd at best 
To infinite dishonor and defeat 
For want of some omnipotence ; these men 
Of Indies doom'd, save only two or three 
From many, to some Hell by my default ! 
I voyage onward to extend God's name 
And Christ's high purpose unto lands remote 
And men of hues uncouth (Moluccans ; else 
The yellow Mongol race ? ) — to spread the seed 
X57 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

No doubt ! But what of very voyaging ? 
What of this gradual inadequacy, 
This perishing of millions whilst I earn 
The infinite saviorhood for one or two, 
And for myself — so moderate must be men's 
Criterion ! — some crown of saintliness ? 
The problem spreads, inclusive of all ways 
Of God with man, of man within his soul : 
The pitiable mean accomplishment — 
Self-shamed ; there lurks the crux of this dismay ! 
For lack of infinite power ; and therethrough 
The doom of innocence on every hand ; 
Doom of those unconverted and myself ; 
Doom likewise in degree of every man. 
The problem is in brief : Man, with a soul 
God-like responsible, yet is not God ; 
How then be worthy of our God, yet Man ? 

Behold, as in this faith-extremity 
I cast myself upon this wavering plank 
Prone upon knees to pray — and all the air 
Is full of inspiration (and yon men. 
The ship's swarth company, retire apart 
Leaving me space for privileged communion), 
158 



XAVIER 

And under me I feel the heave of the sea 
hiterminable, and above my head 
The blue interminable and the clouds 
Ceaselessly travelling athwart the face 
Of heaven — and all is kind unto my thought 
To foster, strengthen, and protect in faith 
By influence beneficent and peace 
In element-performance under God — 
So under God upsurges in my soul 
A clarity, a fair infinitude 
Of aspect and of outlook. Though I be 
Inly foredoomed, yet God Himself did take 
Finitude thus upon Him, and in Christ 
Did touch of men some score in Galilee 
(And they were fisher-folk as these of Ind!) 
And in Jerusalem, but not in Rome 
Nor yet in Goa nor Negapatam. 
I voyage on, my very little space 
Beyond the Christ, as Christ His little space 
Travell'd and touch 'd upon the surging throng 
But here and there : for all the infinite need ! 
I have learn 'd God : how God's mere infinite 
Were emptiness, and nothing were perform 'd 
Were all complete (as some sage Singhalese 
159 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Themselves asserted, following the creed 
Of Prince Asoka from some antique time !) ; 
How fmitude entails accomplishment ; 
And God the infinite Accomplisher 
Became of inmost self-necessity 
(Nay, was from first, as Athanasius saith) 
Essential Finitude, the Man of men ! 
The mystery were thus resolvable : 
That, God being also finitude, so man, 
In virtue of each least accomplishment 
By will and purpose, effort to perform 
Insistent, conscienced, were as God Himself 
Christlike establisher of heaven-on-earth, 
Cause of infinity. And, in degree 
As each feels failure, is infinitude 
In him establish'd, and through him in all 
Who hearken to his tale of Man the Christ. 
And, for the rest, shall Christ not yet suffice 
In some long purgatory by His grace 
Not unbeneficently to redeem 
The dark-of-soul, whatever outward hue 
Their ignorance hath worn under the sun ? — 
Some ignorant might well enough maintain 
The fantasy that even without Christ, 
i6o 



XAVIER 

Through their sad Gautama or Krishna fierce, 

Each swarth idolater doth save himself 

By faith in idol-gods upon the earth 

(Their faith, as mine, the test of saving truth !) 

And effort to live manfully by them ? 

But I, I value God reveal'd, not dream'd : 

Not I ; I voyage in the name of Christ ! 



i6i 



PALESTRINA 

The mandate of Pope Pius, the decree 
Of Council, finally the Cardinals, 
Those eight commission'd, Borromeo most 
And Vitellozzi, pressing with appeal 
That music in the Church — surely a clear 
High contrapuntal canon of command ! — 
That music in the Church shall be reformed 
And I reform it — by formality 
Fresh-liberated, free of the Flemish mode 
Of intricate conceit, yet quite by rule 
Of law newly-devised with dignity 
In place of decoration ; consecution 
Appropriate to expression of the creed 
Or service, offertory, praise, or prayer, 
Rather than some profane inanity 
Of madrigal translated, out of point, 
To vulgarize the heavenly acclaim. 
A fair reform ! Yet surely I have heard 
Of one who, barbarous German renegade. 
Hath undertaken to reform far more 
Than merely music ; hath denied both Pope 
162 



PALESTRINA 

And Council and the holy Cardinals ; 
Denied authority of men o'er men 
As intermediate authorities 
'Twixt man and God (an overt blasphemy 
Decrying God-establish 'd hierarchies 
Essential to religion and the Church — 
Fault damnable), and so hath reft the Church 
In twain with his reforms ; and music too : 
Reduced to lawless maundering, as they say. — 
A situation strange : authority 
Demanding of mine art that at the word 
Of Pope or Council or of Cardinal 
(With threat of abolition should she fail !) 
Music shall yield, and yield the world a law; 
Mine art, obedient to authority, 
Become authority as God to man ! 

At first acceptance (God forbid the fault 
Of heresy !) yet find I in my soul 
Somewhat of Luther : keen to push reform ; 
Whilst as creator, artist in mine heart, 
Indignant at the connoisseur-command — 
At the word of ignorance (placed ne'er so high) 
Demanding this or that accomplishment 
163 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Out of the spirit that should yield to God 
Alone (not man !) the satisfaction of 
Its innermost devotion. I adore 
Man Borromeo, were he ne'er so saint, 
In manner to award him prayer and praise 
Out of the fulness of a reverent soul ? 
Doth any proud position in the Church 
Give artist-insight such that at the word 
Shall spring forth paean from the barren brass ? 
Almost would I too tear the Church in twain 
Than make my music at a churchman's nod ! 
I fancy, too, those tunes of Martin's make 
Are not so bad as Cardinals would claim. 
I deem there must be something said therein 
Straightforward, suited to solemnity. 
Appropriate to a service meant for God : 
Perceiving how the man who speaks in them 
Speaks as the artist-soul original. 
All-independent of the fear of man 
And making music in the name of God ! 
Somehow the case is not so wholly clear 
Despite that counter-canon of command : 
Whether it were not best to scorn command 
And serve but God, well as my will may do, 
164 



PALESTRINA 

All-independent of the fear of man ? 
Music were made, at worst, for music's best 
(And therefore best for prayer and praise of God), 
Were I to make by impulse as I must 
(Regardless of the Church, her proud demand) 
An earnest, genuine, heart-yearning song 
Soaring to God's own throne, not lost athwart 
Their aisles and transepts of the Lateran. 

An earnest, genuine song, made beautiful 
In all the beauties of the sanctuary — 
The Church her proud demand, even as mine ! 
Mine ! for am I the man, or mine the mode 
To be as Martin and his homely psalm ? 
Am not I, working at my music's best 
And quite regardless of the fear of man, 
Yet, as spontaneous creator, still 
Source of an hierarchy, in myself 
Church, Council, Cardinal, and Pope ; my song 
A counter-canon of authority 
Given, regiven, verberant abroad 
In firm reecho from the primal theme 
(The primal God) reiterant and still 
Reiterant down through God's servitors 
165 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The highest, Pope and Cardinals, and then 
The lowlier dignitaries to the least : 
So aggrandizing ever the glory of God 
By imitation to the outermost 
Boundaries of His realm illimitable ? 
Is not the method of the Church mine own, 
And am not I the man who in myself 
Sum up, express, pour forth (as Cardinal 
Or Pope or Council never may pour forth) 
The spirit of Peter, the transmission of 
The splendor apostolic, consecrate 
In laying on of hands, crown upon crown 
Blessing the consecution of command ? 
Such the best freedom, such the late-found 

law 
Reforming every old formality 
By fresh insistence on the power of God 
In Holy Church her wondrous formulae 
Of intervention, man and man between 
Each man and God — even the Pope supreme 
Only as God, the Last, is over him : 
God, the God-given motive in my mind ! — 
No more of Martin's music — good, no doubt, 
For him ; but not for me the master-hand 
i66 



PALESTRINA 

Of music apostolic, laying on 

My manumission of high prayer and praise. 

This Borromeo, Vitellozzi, Pope 
And Council, what is it they crave of me ? 
A Mass, to be exemplar to the age 
Of meaning, music made appropriate 
To Holy Church, her use and services ? 
I am the man and mine the mode ; I make 
Them three — a trinity, for Cardinals 
And Pope and Council : representing God ! 



167 



AKBAR 

There is no God but God ; and I, El Akbar, 

Am representative of God on earth 

As in the heavens the Sun. Whence to the 

Sun, 
Celestial Emperor, lord paramount 
Of skies and potentate of God's decrees 
As written nightly in the further stars — 
Whence to the nearest Word of all God's words 
Interpretable of the astrologers 
I daily make prostration : morn and noon, 
Evening and at the midnight when ends both 
And re-begins the cycle of the skies : 
Four times (a number perfect, as 't is form'd 
Of a self-birth in symmetry of cause 
All ways) I, Akbar, Emperor of earth, 
Worshipping heavenward as the realm of earth 
Shall worship me ; that through both Emperors, 
The heavenly as the earthly, shall the power 
Of God be heralded and manifest, 
Proclaim'd devotionally by the act 
And faith of every servant of His name. 
i68 



AKBAR 

There is no God but God ; and I, El Akbar, 
Am God on earth as in the heavens the Sun. — 

'T is not enough that God should be on earth 
As any merely mild well-temper'd man, 
Or any struggler by the savage sword 
(As Jesus or Muhammad), not enough 
That He appear in vision, some mere dream 
Of power in contradiction to a fact 
Of impotence and failure as of him 
The Nazarene, else to some pettiness 
Of desert carnage and the sack of towns. 
(My father, thus, the pitiful Humayun, 
My grandsire, bold Babar, conqueror, 
Had rather been the deity to worship. 
Than I, consolidator, self-supreme !) 
'T is not enough that God should be on earth 
Despised, rejected, else held fearfully 
In hate enforced because of spear and sword 
Wielded insatiate. But God must be 
On earth in majesty and reverence, 
In power that is so beyond dispute 
(Mine obvious right, not any ancestor's !) 
That, being all-unopposed, 't is infinite. 
i69 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The wisdom and the clemency are mine, 

Made admirable but by the power within 

To scourge earth ; power, in mightier self-restraint ! 

Not as Muhammad who but smote and slew ; 

Not as this Jesus of the Prankish monks 

Himself but smitten and spat upon and slain 

(Not as bold Babar nor the meek Humayun !) : 

But as the God, confirming the divine 

In mine own person, I may smite but will not 

Because I am beyond the sword of man ! 

Enough for Jesus or that Arab chief ; 

Clods, of no Persian culture. Indie wealth ; 

No Jew despised, no lesser-Tamerlane 

Of wrath and unrestraint can be as God 

Divine on earth. I, Akbar, am divine. 

So much for creeds of earth. Shall those of heaven, 
These strange idolatries of Hindu slaves. 
Allure me with their multitude of gods. 
Unless some God be worthier than the rest. 
Some symbol of their all-being provide 
(Mix'd with the meaning of the Magian cult) 
A practical performance and a prayer 
Meet for this teeming people, them whose toil 
170 



AKBAR 

Is of the field and forest, of the rain 
And shine, all sky-dependent ? From the creed 
Of that Muhammad and the Nazarene 
Accept the old Hebraic unity 
Of power, though not in terms of them I scorn 
As humanly inadequate to be 
God-like, but in some nature-sign to show 
These Hindu vassals that divinity 
Which I and those selected of my court 
Must seek and find nowhere than in myself ? 
Let the sun serve, sith it is known to them 
By long-continued custom as a god 
(Creator doubtless by some means occult 
Of clouds and rains as of the parched dust) 
Whereto their reverence doth naturally 
Direct their prayer : that I may build upon 
Their superstition and credulity 
A further confirmation of the truth 
I gradually have evolved in mind : 
My Godship in my kingship absolute. — 
The Zarathushtrians have given excuse 
For this, the Parsis, fire-worshippers 
Whose tongue is Persian and whose heart is pure, 
Whose priests are persons of a liberal mind 
171 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Fit to be functionaries of a cult 

That finds its patron in the Great Mogul ! — 

And lo ! into fire (let it but be believed) 

Our souls shall alter at the last decease 

And wander in spirit as a purity 

Through all things, quickening the life of each. 

A future fitter than a paradise, 

A merit meeter than that judgment-bar 

Imagined of those occidental creeds 

Which cramp divinity with more and less 

Of wrath or love and leave the soul a slave ! 

So, let the fire be for an holy sign ; 
And let the arch-priest, the sage and sweet Vizir, 
Bring forth the focus-glass that fire may fall 
From heaven upon the fuel here prepared 
As sacred hearth and shrine of empire. 
And let the courtiers and the people pay 
Respect to each and every lamp at night 
In courtyard or in palace, and receive 
Sun with obeisance ; as example shown 
Of my prostration publicly commands. — 
Behold ! in mosque or church or fane alike 
Is God but Akbar as He dwells on earth. 
172 



AKBAR 

And of this Akbar is the Sun in heaven 
High representative, a Power, a Fire, 
Focus and unity of every flame, 
Emperor, Potentate, all-absolute. — 
There is no God but God ; and I, El Akbar, 
Am God on earth as in the heavens the Sun. 
Allahu y^^^^r — meaning: God is Great, 
Akbar is God — doubly declaring both ! 



173 



SHAKESPEAR 

Ah me ! mine own success I cannot reap ! 
The groundlings flatter ; and I set me straight 
To write them just another such a piece 
As pleased — yet no jot can my stint repeat. 
So through these weary seasons hath it been 
(Belike I jest, yet in mine own despite !) — 
No respite from a fond progression. 
Though to deaf Heaven I bootless cry to keep 
My mind unmoved, still must I undo 
All flattery, all praise obliterate 
With some new strange experiment to win 
The general — which, when their ear is won, 
E'en with its own slow-earned half-success 
Turns all attention, swerves all fair revenue 
From earlier sore-snatch'd popularity. 
Say it be won, the top of admiration : 
Othello hath no peer. Yet, seek as hard 
As wit may work to trick their wits again 
With any story of Boccaccio, 
With any old-wife's winter's evening's tale, 
The manner alters and the labor 's lost ; 
Until the groundlings (fickle as the gods, 
174 



SHAKESPEAR 

Yet favorable !) laud me the novelty — 
And then Othello's occupation *s gone, 
And all is unwell though it endeth well ! 
To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow 
(Some humor find I in this high-flown strain 
Stealing the thunder-cloud of mine own bombast 
To vent this spleen with, mocking so myself !), 
To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow, 
Each day begins the business all anew ; 
And of the yesterdays no whit remains 
To arm me against seas of troubles new-stirr'd 
Betwixt me and the starvelings of the pit 
With every offering of a new- writ play. 
Ah ! could I twice re-write, re-vamp the old — 
T were to be playwright then, if not to be 
Poet : the question — is the play the thing ? 
Would I might borrow and lend e'en of myself 
As of this Ariosto. Fain would I lose 
The loan itself (if not these friends therewith !), 
Sailing on flood of tide in mine affairs 
Rough-hew them though I should. The humor takes me, 
The thing's conceit. And yet 't would never do. 
I am no playwright ; though the pit cry out 
On top of flattery, still I write beyond 

175 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Their moment's gust, still unto heaven's gates 
Send larks ascending, still reap contumely 
At every first-night — till the twelfth night shines ! 
And now am I turned punster, with ado 
O'er nothing yearning (ay, beshrew my soul 
For arrant knavery !) toward those comedies 
In error, which ne'er I may make again. 
Which paid so handsomely for house and field ! 
Haply these chronicles of British kings 
(I have my share in), writ indifferent ill 
With help of friends, may bring in some revenue 
(So full of sounding words and stirring deeds !) 
And keep the wife's pot boiling as the stew 
On witches' heath ? But by my forthright art, 
Ah me ! I cannot reap mine own success — 
But mouth and mow anent some mad old Lear, 
Some whoreson Cleopatra in her cups ; 
Jesting at mine own impotence to be 
Up doing at my business of the stage — 
A passable actor, marry ; but a fool 
Not fit to know a failure at first-hand ! 

But now more honorably with mine art — 
Belike a way '11 be found in fair excuse, 
176 



SHAKESPEAR 

Some proof of method in this maddening shift 
From profitable comedy or some 
Tragic impressive popularity 
To, ever subtlier and involved more, 
A high romancing o'er the general — 
This caviare I offer them for meat ? 
Mayhap I have my reason though my play 
Hath none ? There may be something in this soul 
Of honest Will the rhymester, as of Jaques 
In Arden, though his greenwood 's London town, 
That groweth all regardless of the want 
For reimbursement ; else, of beggary ? 
To London came I and was one of them. 
These players and purveyors of bad verse — 
Or worse ; to London ; and have been from first 
A peer if no small potentate among them. 
Adapting to the method of the time 
(Each time serves for the matter born in it !) 
My daily converse or my nightly song 
In wassail with the rest — as natural. 
Perchance I am two persons out of tune ; 
And this that lifts to speak before the bar 
Of wise examining within me now 
The nobler of the jangling ill-match 'd twain ? 
177 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Then let it speak and soothe to harmony 
(By overmastering of the discord harsh) 
The music that is melody indeed, 
Sweet reasoning and understanding sane ! 
A man that hath not music — in himself 
Is beggary though he breathe the wooing air 
Of kingly palaces and crowds acclaim 
His pettiest perfections ! — So, to Lear ! 
On with the petulant, pitiful old man 
So unlike idols of our England's stage, 
So lost a king, yet so inevitable 
Unto the shaping insight as I labor. 
On, to that infinite variety 
(Eternity still in her lips and eyes) 
Which custom hath not staled nor withered, 
My Serpent of Old Nile, bred o' the sun 
And slime, not of the town ! For I obey 
Necessity, must tell Othello's tale 
(This truculence of rhythm in my heart). 
Though he the Moor be set at naught thereby. 
Nothing must I extenuate nor warp 
In malice — trusting that such stuff as dreams 
Are made on must as dreams be builded up 
Out of the cloud-capt high imaginings 
178 



SHAKESPEAR 

Of multitudinous truths extemporized 

Of fantasy looking before and after — 

The hues of resolution richlier blown 

With every cast of thought. That thus no whit 

Ought I my stint of scripture to repeat 

As playwright flattering the groundlings* whim, 

To make the angels weep ; but I, proud man, 

Now manumitted of the fear of the pit, 

Dress'd in the poet's quick authority 

Eternalize my tongue ! Not monuments 

Of princes shall outlive mine impotent rhyme 

That, dying with the utterance, lifts again 

To grandeur witless of a withering ! — 

The King hath e'en commanded us to play 
That prurient trick'd-up stew of Troilus 
Another time. I will not play it for him. 
I *ve earn'd enough for competence without 
More ribaldry. — On with this doomed Lear ! 



179 



DESCARTES 

Cogito, ergo sum! — Gassendi hath 

And Hobbes, sour exile, none too courteously, 

Question'd the ultimatum ; and the rest 

Murmur of God. Mine answers have I sent 

(All that I care or dare say publicly !) 

In satisfaction to the crude complaints. 

And yet myself I cannot satisfy, 

Stirr'd by objection to subject my creed 

To keener criticism, a scrutiny 

More penetrating than the best of theirs. 

Mine axiom stands invulnerable. Now 

Let me best be my critic, through my faith 

In that self-certainty, allowing nought 

Contrary to that primal postulate 

To mar the logic-harmony ; but all 

*Soe'er of God or world, let it remain 

Only if consonant with final truth. 

Cogito, ergo sum! — Upon that rock 

I rear me, though the very heavens fall. 

Cogito, ergo sum ! — The vortices 
Of motion borne upon the stream of time 
i8o 



DESCARTES 

Contain no such criterion of truth 
Immediate, conclusive. Nay, nor God 
(Despite His putative eternity) 
Himself affords such certainty as this. 
That I have weakly yielded to the whim 
Of flattering outworn divinity. 
Allowing * truthfulness of will in God ' 
To supplement the self-won principle 
For guarantee of certainty, but brings 
Shame to my soul, confusion to my creed 
In contrast to the plain nobility 
Of that enunciation clear, distinct, 
Which springs in introspection. * Cogito * ■ 
Therefore all truths 'soever of my soul 
Hold valid by inference of the human fact 
Of self-identity immediate. 
And God, so far as any need inheres 
Of guarantee against an ultimate doubt, 
Were supererogatory to my soul. 
Mere source of ultimate confusedness. 
Within mine intimate discovery 
Of doubt-transcending entity no flaw 
Demands God-resolution. This my soul 
Is absolute ; and, if somewise of God 
i8i 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(As even I were scarce prepared as yet 
To contradict), hath no dependency 
By any virtue of residual doubt ; 
But is itself final criterion 
Of clearness and distinctness. All without 
The soul must seem indeed a source confused 
Of indirection and analogy, 
Fit object of the sweeping skepticism 
To which I aye subject it. If within 
Is certainty, without 's but theory 
Interpretative of sensations scarce 
Distinguishable, scarce beyond the beasts' 
Referable to reason. And, for this, 
Were God no supererogation, but 
Basic necessity, an warranty 
Be wanted, an the passions of the sense 
May anywise be clarified, subdued, 
And brought to order and a systeming. 
God may be Mind or no. His may be mine 
Absolute insight of self-being, yet 
(As His — as supplemental to the proof 
Within — beyond first incidence of mine) 
Not needed, nowise indispensable 
To mine assurance. But without the self 
182 



DESCARTES 

Were chaos, save some ordering God-will 
Creates, haply sustains, and orders all things 
Contrary to deception and impels 
The animal-spirits correctly to report 
Unto the soul in brain-stuff situate 
The manner of world-motions ; which, save only 
Mediance of the gland pineal, might 
Nowhere enact on thought an alterance 
Nor offer any information through 
Machineries of sense. But by God's will 
(And only by God's will miraculous) 
Doth motion indicate upon the soul 
Its indirections, its analogies 
Unto interpretation, skepticism 
And theory approximating toward. 
But never realizing, certainty 
Beyond some dubitation. Save for God, 
Might the man-mind in vain essay an insight 
Of worldly things, sans God beyond all reach 
Of any knowledge ; as the motion-world 
Of space-rmpulsion and of vortices 
Might wilder chaoswise, and none to heed 
Cosmic fatuity, for all the care 
With which upon the pulses of our brain 
183 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

The emanations and the corpuscles 
Might beat in vanity. — The vortices 
Contain no certainty like this of self. 
But God by act miraculous of will 
Orders the spirits-animal intervening 
To cause infection of the conscious soul 
And yield a knowledge where no knowledge is 
By any power of the human will. 
And thus were soul in this its certainty 
Confined unto volition which alone 
Is independent of the world-machine 
And of the intervened divinity. 
Thus were my will alone cause-of-itself 
And independent of a God beyond 
Who may or may not be formaliter 
Himself my will without affecting it 
Nor causing derogation from the truth 
Of certainty immediate. But thought, 
In so far as affected by the things 
Of motion and emotions of the sense, 
Essentially dependeth on the act 
Of God, and must upon His truthfulness 
Implicit place reliance ; that, sans God, 
Were all my doctrines of the vortices — 
184 



/ 



DESCARTES 

Their propagance of motion self-conserved — 

Of mechanism and geometry 

(Which seem so pseudo-clear, so false-distinct 

At least to cogitation) nothing more 

Than postulates, coordinates in God 

Of a proof, of a curvature nowise 

Intrinsically provable. And world 

Remains enigma, save our confidence 

In God be perfect beyond skepticism ! 

And can the soul that once hath known itself 
In thought's immediate certainty rest thus 
In confidence upon a God unfelt 
Whose plausible coincidence of will 
Even with mine own might never operate 
Otherwise than my certainty of self 
Permits unto the will of God-in-me ? 
Were not the soul, that thus can rise beyond 
Dependence and attain indifference toward 
The infinite will (such autovital self) , 
Superior to any confidence 
Wherein the right of self-reliance were 
Lost and assurance credulously placed 
Upon the fiat of an emptiness 
185 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Which no heart-introspection verifies ? 

Rather, the true report of skepticism 

Be for a credo ; firm denial of God 

For faith : acceptance of uncertainty 

Be certain, clear, distinct assurance won : 

How nought in the world stands proven as we 

sense it ; 
But all, if any world beyond the soul 
Exist, may be deception ! Then at last, 
However pitiful and valueless. 
Ironical, a mockery might be 
The proven data of a motion-world 
Conceived as heterousian to thought, 
Yet in such world's rejection by our thought 
Lurks nothing that may make the soul ashamed. 
Nothing wherefrom our certainty may shrink 
For fear of lie divine, contingency 
For guarantee ; but all is open then 
To confidence, reliance in a will 

That wipes into a nescience inane * 

The fabled world of fiat ! That a world / 

(For some world must be to our questioning) 
Based in the inward certainty (for no 
World hath survived from self estranged) may rise 
i86 



DESCARTES 

Germane unto the mind that makes of it 
Interpretations of the things of sense 
Which are of thought's own substance ; and 

be seen 
By warranty of faith immediate 
In world-construction (to our questioning 
A fair response) for soul-experience 
Of soul, in virtue of the will-of-self 
Self-differential ! Then my Cogito 
Shall bear a meaning of a world-in-me ; 
Mine Ergo sum involve creation (as 
A God) of endless multitudes of souls, 
Past and to-come unto the end of time, 
Holding in each soul, as within my soul, 
By godship, each, all-time's criterion 
All-independent of eternity. 
Cogito, ergo sum ! — (Gassendi hath 
His answer, and I mine) — The vortices 
Shall stare amazed upon the Vortex-Soul ! 



187 



SPINOZA 

How marvellous that I, the mind minute, 
Of personage obscure and humble place, 
Benedict, outcast (how that Benedict 
Implies the wonder !) at my daily task 
Of grinding glasses unto optic aid, 
Should share in God and, to my least degree, 
In finite represent His attributes 
Infinite, grounds of my modality. 
Extension both and Thought ; in that I taste 
Both bodily and with the spirit-sight 
(As body and thought are one within my soul) 
Somewhat of His intention absolute — 
For order, system, law are God in us — 
Gazing athwart these lowlands toward the sea 
And sensing God the boundless in their breadth. 
Ay, every man and every beast (therein 
Descartes was blind and brutal that he placed 
Dumb brutes beyond the pale of soul !), in sort 
Each herb of the field, if not each smallest grain 
Of the sea's shifting sand, yields sight in least 
Of that which God is. For in fact and thought 
Is He each man, each beast, each herb of the field, 
i88 



SPINOZA 

And every grain of the sea's shifting sand — 
The sea unseen, whose murmur, like God's voice 
Within the heart, comes on the distant air 
Unto my window as I work and muse 
Of His infinity, the Far yet Here, 
Thought ev'n as Existence. For the great Descartes 
Was fair in this : that certainty of self 
(And with it, as I hold, of every fact 
In anywise resemblant of a self) 
Felt in the postulate immediate 
(As by analogy applied to all) 
Of thought, can rest but in the truth of God 
His being as His knowing. But beyond 
Descartes was this ; the proof that, an God be 
(As God were absolute primal axiom!), 
Must all soe'er in somewise be of Him 
Parcel and aspect, sharing as of God 
In thought and being, spirit-truth or space. 
For otherwise were God's infinitude 
Hamper'd, determined, and confined (so made 
Nought infinite) by merest being of each 
(For, e'en though finite, yet must entity 
Be relatively theirs in virtue of 
Possess 'd extension, attribute of being : 
189 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

No mere illusion to our thought that else 
Were but deceived by God whose law is truth !) 
Were God confined by very being of each 
The least herb of the field, sand of the sea, 
Or ear to hear the murmuring far voice 
From ocean drifting with the westerwind 
Unto my window over the wide lea. 
Rene was right. But on him must I build 
The explanation of our dualism, 
God's prime assumption of the attributes 
Wherein, as substantives by God create 
Opposed, Descartes divided yet the world 
Nor reunited them, as needs should be, 
(Save partially, if God and mind be one ?) 
In ultimate essence of the Substance-God. 
For God conceived he (as a man might see 
Some ocean over beyond a managed land) 
For stuff-of-thought somewise intractable. 
Incapable of reclamation still ; 
Maugre our dunes or dikes of argument 
Not germane to the fact of fact-in-space 
But sheerly non-extensive ; that there stood. 
Over against the solid land of men, 
Their goings and their comings practicable 
190 



SPINOZA 

(Which only as in the brain's pineal gland 
Had touch of God or unity with Him !), 
The theory of God within the mind : 
Final assurance somewise (as the sea 
Might seem to bound and be for firmament 
Around our continent) of me and mine, 
This man and that man and their means and ways ; 
But not, save solely for that postulate 
Of being through thought's certainty of self. 
Accountable for truth's duality 
In either instance. For the mind of God 
(With Rene, substantive not attribute ; 
Opposed to matter and not reconciled 
By relative ascription), why should it think 
(By indirection through the mind of man 
Dreaming the dreams of space unwarrantable !) 
The thoughts call'd mind of man ; and why should man 
Think thoughts of space-extension, dream of things 
Unwarranted by spacelessness of God, 
And hence, if anywise themselves a truth. 
Of independent fundament ? Whence God 
By postulates Cartesian well might seem 
A somewhat merely over-against all 
We know of land and sea and air alike ; 

191 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

And therefore (lo ! a God remote and lorn 
As ocean !) inly over-against us too, 
Whose stuff-of- thought (explained as God none less !) 
Is land and sea and air, herb of the field. 
Beast of the pasture, and that distant sound 
Which comes like voice out of the infinite 
In sooth, whilst but some emanation from 
The pulse-beat of the surge upon the sand — 
Nought other : though it stir my senses here 
And with them all my soul (my soul, but sense 
Of world in order of eternity 
And therefore God in sort) to speak of God ! 
Thus take I great Descartes. Were he right wholly 
(And then would he be Nature, God not Man !) 
Were God yet very near nonentity ; 
And nought were referable unto Him 
Nor explicable by infinity, 
Where His infinity, so false-conceived 
As mental substance sans space-attribute, 
Were bounded by the substance of our space, 
Our world and everything we think therein 
So far as built upon the facts of sense ! 
Nor can Geulincx, with all his fear of God, 
Effect a reconciling, where his God 
192 



SPINOZA 

Must operate on substances opposed, 
Mind both and body as occasion calls, 
To harmonize ; though neither is of Him 
For attribute, and therefore both alike 
Determine God as in Jehovah's guise ; 
And Descartes' fault is doubled. Nor can they 
Of Britain, Bacon, Hobbes, or latest Locke, 
By reference of every truth to sense 
And thus at last to motion, more than mean 
That of a God, an One, they know nor care. 
But of the dear dilemma doth a truth 
Evolve, how God, if Godlily He be. 
Must owe both fundamental attributes. 
Not mind alone, far less this world of space 
Solely, but both alike, extension and 
Thought, if inverse of aspect both yet God's, 
Attributes wherein rests modality. — 
That further problem of the attributes. 
Their prime interrelation, how they be 
Wholly obverse and yet of God the same, 
Without relation and yet correlate, 
That problem leave I to futurity 
Building upon me as upon Descartes 
I build. My stint of sight goes not so far, 
193 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Though sure unto the limit of my reason : 
Reason, sufficient by my sharing in 
The truth of God, as He is infinite 
And finite I, but otherwise one truth. 
Nay, and that further contrast ultimate 
Of my half-finite, His infinity 
(This difficulty of our modalism) 
Seemeth itself but marvel, not to be 
Wholly explain'd by me the quasi-finite 
Who realize, appropriate in mind 
But may not sanely solve the mystery 
None less for marvel actual assured ! 
For in the dual attribution springs 
The form of truth that yields me share in God ; 
And therefore is the marvel possible 
That I the bigots' scapegoat, late thrust out 
From synagogue and service of my race 
And in this humble village set to earn 
A meagre livelihood by craft obscure, 
May ne'ertheless feel of the infinite 
My share for solace and be stuff of God 
Both as I sit and see the widespread leas 
Of this Low Country and, though fleshly-born, 
Am parcel of His plenitude of space, 
194 



SPINOZA 

And as the murmur of the distant sea 
So faintly touching on the ear of sense 
Speaks to the spirit and resolves my thought 
To ratiocinate of God the Mind, 
Thought-universal : that my meagre thoughts 
Are also God's : God thereby through me proven, 
In virtue even of my fmitude. 
Nowise determined of my fmitude, 
But postulating and approving it 
In both those ways diverse which great Descartes 
Fail'd of ascribing equally to Him. 
And thus the ultimate axiom of God, 
The substance self-appearing modalwise 
As self-diverse, gleams through my daily task 
Of grinding glasses unto optic aid 
(Fit symbol of a mission unto men !) 
Daily discern'd, daily to comfort me 
In this affliction, thrust beyond the pale 
Of race and old religion. And I plan, 
As adequately as my share in Him 
May prompt me and permit, to set me forth 
The ethical system of the Modal God, 
The substance and the attributes portray'd, 
The truths of reason and the truths of sense, 
195 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Insight of ordering eternity 

To govern, regulate our daily ways 

Of passion and affection — all portray 'd 

By method of the sure geometer 

From postulate and axiom, premised in 

The truth of this reflection : whilst the sea 

Pours to my ear attuned, attentive now 

The distant, small yet full sonority 

Of mightiness at working : that my work, 

Though emanate but from this mind minute. 

May with the breadth and fulness of the sea 

Have power, and speak to many among men 

Of mightiness at working. Great Descartes 

Rifted the world in twain — I, Benedict 

The poor world-outcast, heal the rift — in God. 



196 



KANT 

From our dogmatic slumbers surely we 
Awake, and critically comprehend 
The compromise between opposing creeds. 
From our dogmatic slumbers we awake ! 
God, freedom, immortality abide, 
An heritage of grace inviolable 
In virtue of the comprehension, saved 
Unto our personal practice, though at best 
Lost from phenomenal sufficiency 
Or any knowledge. But the faith remains 
Clear'd of confusion with the things of sense, 
Space-intuition or the synthesis 
Sprung a posteriori. Prior to 
All understanding, underlying all 
Of sensuous reason, gleam intuitive 
To pure-imagination (an the term 
Mean though t-beyond-conception ?) postulates 
Proved innerly ideal, quite beyond 
Concatenation with experiable 
Truth-presentation. Undiscursively 
Sub specie ceternitatis spring 
The truths beyond space, time, or very judgment 
197 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Self -given, transcendental : God, the soul ; 
And, of the two conjoin'd, freedom of deed 
Within will-conscience categorical. 
Thus much is sure : no mere analysis 
Of inborn intellection e'er might yield 
Experience ; no experience by sense, 
Save apperceptual, might formulate 
Truth-relativity and functioning. 
Nor, if our knowledge be, as thus approved, 
Wholly experiential, earn'd of sense 
For necessary substance apperceived 
Within the formal functions space and time. 
Might duty, conscience, immortality 
Be saved unto the soul, nor God and soul 
Experience themselves, unless at last 
Over beyond experience remain 
The final postulates self-warranted. 
Axiomatic, whereof (noumenal 
To faith if to our very reason blind) 
Are guidance, valuation yielded to 
All acts of man, man moralist alone 
In virtue of a Duty, absolute. 
Unquestionable. We indeed awake 
From our dogmatic slumbers ; and are sure 
198 



KANT 

By warrant of the sane evaluation, 

Evaluation applicable alike 

To aught sensational or rational, 

Hypostatized or formal, save alone 

Those postulates exempt, themselves beyond 

Concept of form or substance. Save at least 

For such exemption, seems the last truth known, 

The problem solved. —Might any man do more ? 

And in the conscious-won achievement now 

I, soul-mature, resign the teaching, take 

Leave of my post for leisure whilst I live 

To recapitulate to mine own mind 

What I have learn'd and taught before all men. 

And the truth seems as I above declare. 

Displacing dogmatisms hitherto 

True seemingly and heretofore believed. 

Though, were it not but dogmatism disguised 
To rest in any doctrine that would seem 
Final truth-satisfaction ? May not truth 
(Attainable perchance by criticism, 
Yet, as attain'd, formative-critical !) 
Itself be process, truth-belief at best 
In alterance ever (I would fain believe 
199 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

No man in error where belief is frank 

As in this Gottlieb ! I would fain believe 

My wisdom unendanger'd by success 

Of counter-systems !) that the old give place 

To new : as I in leadership must now 

Yield to the young-advancing spirit, he 

Whom I befriended, yet before the world 

Who openly decries my creed, would fain 

Substitute for this credence noumenal 

Some sense of selfness felt intuitively, 

To solve the riddle of antinomies 

As I proposed them, relegating form- 

And-substance (hitherto my fundament 

Of cosmic explanation) to mere phase 

Of self-deliverance, self-utterance 

Of the absolute inherence, egohood ? 

My craft were criticism, judgment o'er 

The crabbed dogmatisms of thought and sense — 

And so far fairly ! Yet are those dogmatisms 

In my critique, as sadly I confess, 

Alike regarded as unreconciled 

For terms of explanation ultimate 

Unless in some third function nowhere found 

Save in a faith, pragmatic postulate 

2CXD 



KANT 

Necessitated lest reason and sense 

Alike be vacuous and all truth be lost ; 

Faith call'd in compromise to substitute 

For non-phenomena unknowable, 

For spaceless, timeless soul-nonentity, 

For chaos come again, wanting a form. 

That I 've derived God, immortality. 

The human soul from such sheer tour deforce 

Of unctio in extremis to my creed 

Scarce may discredit this the fresh attempt 

Of him who, postulating inwardness, 

Egohood for the pure nooumenon 

(Though how such universal be defined 

Unless as I and thou as each is man, 

1 know not nor might readily conceive !), 

Assumes the derivation of a world 

By spontaneity, as it would seem, 

Although by opposition absolute 

From out such selfness. Shall I pale before 

The young-ascending star without at worst 

Some criticism, comprehensively 

Some effort urgent of mine egohood 

(Of Egohood within the will of me 

Even as a god, and yet God by no means ! — 

201 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

So Johann Gottlieb teacheth me to mouth) 

Unspent as yet although eyesight be dim 

And hand's strength failing for the record here ? 

Shall I in dogmatism make descent 

Who flourish'd in a dogmatism's fall, 

Or use my last of critical acumen, 

Of estimate and apperception, toward 

Some reconstruction of the falling scheme, 

Some alteration of the creed, to crave 

Attention from the centuries to-come 

Even beyond this Fichte's ? For I feel. 

In my sad sense of failure before him 

Who would reclaim to our experience 

Innerly what my teaching hath but proved 

No presentation — in my failure feel I 

A principle of regenerance, a seed 

Perchance of proof will relegate his own 

(Which seems indeed strangely to lack some real 

Accountability for me and thee 

As we are facts of mine experience !) 

To obsolescence. Centuries, may be. 

Shall heed some fresh tongue that shall plainly speak 

What I 'd adumbrate with my senile sense 

And failing faculties which yet yield not 

202 



KANT 

Without revolt to triumph such as his 
Who was my pupil ; for the old demurs 
At the new prophet and would none of him, 
Save to refute him out of his own mouth, 
By full agreement fain outstripping him 
To win the laurel in the lists of truth ! — 
So be it ; for this my criticism now 
Of mine own creed and system, radical 
And fundamental in simplicity : 
The egohood of Fichte (which would seem 
Wanting in characteristic ?), with mine own 
Appreciant return upon the truth 
Within the truth and constituting it ; 
Solving perchance the problem of a God-world 
Noumenal, self-sustaining as I feel it 
In process of world-truth, yet none the less 
Experiable and phenomenal, 
Formal and characteristic even in each 
As each, yet infinite in every soul. 
For is not this my soul some infinite 
(Not as a world-force surely — but as myself!) 
Grasping the truth of Gottlieb, as before 
The truths of predecessors, by return 
Upon itself ever elaborating 
203 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Unlimited criteria within 

(But not beyond ; for nought might be beyond !) 

The postulated process ? Therefore, on 

To criticism unused, whose verity 

Even as some function of my being pfoves 

Capacity within my creed to close 

With views unwonted, satisfactory 

Unto an intellect that knows itself 

In the very process-critical, itself 

Highest example of the problem now 

To solve by power of the problem's self. 

For, on this hint of Fichte, I absolve 
Intellect from those limitations (deem'd 
Proven as limitations) space and time — 
Its own formality. And now declare 
Essential formalism (such even as space 
And time the universals) for no proof 
Of limitation nor of truth beyond 
Our powers of apprehension rationally, 
Which by their own exhaustion but exhaust 
Truth proven concluded of their formalism 
And formalist essentially as them. 
Though all be given in phenomena 
204 



KANT 

As an experience interminable, 
Yet just such mutualism essential yields 
Key to the secret of experience, 
Yields resolution to the antinomy 
Of such a criticism as mine old creed 
Pronouncing its own impotence of proof ! 
For, lo ! howe'er our sense be constituted 
Of universe external, if we be 
(As thou or I in estimating truth) 
Ourselves the judge of such experience, 
Experiencing but in virtue of 
This faculty of judgment critical 
(As mine old creed fairly establishes), 
Then is our truth a figment in itself 
(Not representative but original. 
Not tentatively but definitive 
Unto the soul elaborating it !) 
Of its own mastery creative, true 
As by processiveness recomplicant 
Of the creator-judgment, thine or mine, 
Inly assumptive ; and (unless we be 
Utterly all-illusive !) infinite 
Because interminably determinative 
Of its intrinsic mutuality 
205 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Of item unto item constituting 

My personality or thine alike 

Creative of the world-experience 

Nowise identical, yet identically 

Appreciant, apperceptive, absolute 

For all world's sensuous relativity 

And imposition of the counter-self — 

Posited counter, scarce by force imposed 

Of general conatus not one's own 

But, by the identical totality 

Of selfness equally inherent to 

Mine object-inverse as mine egohood. 

And to such self-world scheme were space the 

form 
Of counter-self supposed indifferent 
To alteration ; and the form of change 
Time, as my consciousness alone hath motion 
Cumulant, irretractable, and hence 
Essentially processive (whether through 
Objective- world or subject), over space 
An alterant eternity in each 
Moment of implication endlessly. 
Where were the need, to such evaluing, 
Of any cosmic essence putatively 
206 



KANT 

(That bugbear thing-itself beyond all ken ! ) 
A non-objective independently 
Of formalism in this my space and time ? 
Where were the need of any egohood 
(Call it a soul, God, immortality : 
My theory or Fichte's, who may care ?) 
All undiscursive of an universe ? 
What were the want of some imperative 
Of conscience nowise presentational. 
Bearing no reference to a world of selves 
Of equal counter-obligation ? How 
Conceive some ultimate antinomy 
Of finite-infinite, when, to this new 
Presupposition of totality 
At self-determination, finitude 
Or absolute infinity alike 
Were utterly fallacious ; and the truth, 
The essence-structure of the system's self. 
Were some infinitizing of each fact 
By comprehension of the whole in each, 
Were some determinism finite-wise, 
But none less inferential endlessly 
Of the universal, of the unifaction 
Of rational appreciation ? Such 
207 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

A faculty of judgment doubtless may 
Excuse its operation from the law 
Of abstract concept categorical 
Or crass modalities of logic-scheme ; 
Where every judgment is alike of form 
Inceptual, mutualizing (by no mean 
Of class-subsumption, no identifying 
Of entities distinct but misdefmed 
By the inclusion indiscriminant), 
Mutualizing items whose whole worth 
(Whose worth as whole and finally defined) 
Lies in their implication each of each 
Obversely, by polarity of like 
To unlike (by appropriance subjectwise 
In contrast to the world-rejectiveness 
Of object), reconciled but ne'er confused 
In the judgment-deed, the effective alterance 
Of self through world, the conscious ethicism 
Positing both which otherwise were nought. 
Such an inherence of the world in self, 
Self in the world establishing its truth 
By absolute experience, were perforce 
A moralism, an insight of the deed 
Determinant interminably through 
208 



KANT 

All deeds else of a world's infinity, 
And hence a conscience and a duty, far 
Beyond all law-imposed imperative, 
Establishing for law what well may seem 
Rule universal — * Act so that thy deed 
'Should be the deed of all.' For thus thy deed 
(By my fresh insight of the world-permeation) 
Determines universally through all 
A novel form and substance unto truth. 
Each deed itself creative of a truth 
Valid by absolute conformity 
Unto the nature of the cosmic scheme, 
A scheme created by the comprehension, 
The evaluation ultimate express'd 
In each world-conscienced act-experience 
Of teleology interminable 
(For all the empiricism of our sense) 
Through space-in-time, of every hour and place 
Wherein we move and have our being. For thus 
Are space and time no mere restrictive forms 
In limitation of the thing-itself. 
But, space for world, time for the subject-soul. 
Our essence-being and the truth of things 
Noumenal as perceptual, sensuous 
209 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As intellectual ; and nought were beside 

Of any meaning to an universe 

Of individuation, personal 

As this of thine and mine ! — There, Fichte, thou ! 

Condemn me out of mine own mouth, if thou 

Wouldst to the centuries be more than 1 1 

But, ah ! what standard anywhere of truth 
Remains, if out of every mouth may mouth 
Condemn the truth, as I this Fichte's, he 
Mine, as myself erstwhile have disapproved 
The dogmatisms heretofore believed ? 
Where were the settlement of truth-dispute 
Fit for the fond old-age of such as me, 
To comfort and console for many a doubt 
With sense of some real goal to all our search 
And standard ultimate for test and proof ? 
If to the centuries thou wouldst be more 
Than I, or I than thou, must there be more 
For truth-criterion than this strange-made Self 
(Whate'er its restless heart-conatus toward 
Unceasing criticism cumulative ! ) 
Which thou hast conjured and my thought hath 
won 

2IO 



KANT 

Unto pale-gibbering ghostliness, myself 

As that false seer whose disembodied earth 

Shimmer'd arcanawise within his dreams ! 

Ah, Gottlieb ! what hast thou not wrought of harm 

To sane and serious thinking ; what have I 

Not in this hour brought home to mine own creed 

Of accusation in enormity ? 

Descartes, Spinoza, Leibnitz, none did this ; 

Locke, Berkeley, nay — save as a Hume was in them ; 

And we, as now ! But we are many Humes, 

Powerful as our disproofs are powerful 

Beyond the shallower skepticism to slay. 

Slay and leave nought but orphanage to earth ! 

Cringe we not both convicted, who forsook 

The safe assumption of a Deity 

Himself accountable not unto us 

Even for the mystery, the antinomy 

Of me or thee striving to comprehend 

An universe ? Struck not my first fond blow 

The shackles from our dogmatisms, to lead 

Inevitably to the loss at last 

Of all God guaranteed ? My criticism. 

My feeling for the soul's formality 

And earth's phenomenality, alas ! 

211 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Lifted they not the veil, that thou and I 

Have enter'd into the temple and are there 

Godless, deserted, desolate of hope, 

The great destroyers of the Word-Reveal'd, 

Thought-stultified and soul-ashamed ? What faith 

Without pretence of logic can abide 

The very skepticism that left it there 

A mockery unto mine own insight 

When stirr'd to quick acumen by thy crude 

Snatch at the thunder, by thy gross conceit 

Of innermost omniscience ? Mine old-age 

Hath left earth somewhat desolate ; thy youth 

Hath sow'd but dragon-teeth of discontent 

At hard-won orphanage ! For surely we 

From our safe dogmatisms are wide-awaked : 

And the new chaos welters, who knows where ? 



212 



MRS. BROWNING 

No, not one word of death ! Though here I die, 
These songs I leave thee. And they are my life ! — 

Love, who hast given me hope and health and voice, 
Making me poet in mine own despite ! 
Lurk'd there a song of my lips till thy love bid me 
Onward and up to lift my heart to thine — 
There that thou stoodest sole yet and sublimely 
Where no soul's song save mine may dwell with 

thee ? 
Surely a world of song is wholly thine : 
Thine isolate sublimity, no lack 
Of a universe to love and call thine own. 
Yet, thou wast wont to stoop, to lift it, so ! 
Till, suddenly, one lift more, and 't is I 
Startling my spirit to its fresh-found depths 
With peal and psean who can stand with thee ! 
*T is the right woman's-work. Where thou art — 

well. 
Not seraph-spotless as in vaster theme 
(Though how this love of mine at least did mend 
Thy music to that song of Any Spouse 
213 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Whose spotlessness belies me where I lie !), 

Where thou wert passionate yet conscienced still 

Of man and woman as a man must be — 

There swells the wife-heart ; and the Word is sung ! 

Shall I accomplish thus Aurora's life 

In mine own person, complementing man 

With woman's utter passion-purity ? 

What though Aurora fail as poet-piece ? 

It manifests a mission — made complete 

In its own failure by these Sonnet-things. 

These, then, my song ; my voice wrung-out by thee, 

For thee and through thee unto all mankind — 

The love that springs forth naked, unashamed ! 

Love, how these songs live at the "heart of thee! 



214 



CARLYLE 

I GRIEVE for old bereavement ; long alone 

I seek to salve my sore with some new sight, 

Mine own gone stale ; I seek to see the world 

With eyes of others : as in all those years 

Of her companionship I fail'd to find 

Hers or to dwell at large within that soul. 

Thus much hath been of loss irrevocable, 

Wholly inexorable, fix'd withal — 

Thus much of her. Let me not quit the world 

Without some insight of the younger eyes 

To bear upon my grief ; I yet preserving 

What wisdom hath been to me beyond theirs : 

Not losing God, perhaps gaining the world 

In some way yet unguess'd. Let me allow 

This loneliest unrest to expatiate 

Out of the fulness of some central truth 

Ev'n to truth's utmost confines — how, I care not ; 

But yield my thought to the flux, all unafraid. — 

In darkness or in wisdom struggling, each, 
Centre and focus of immensity. 
The confluence each of two eternities : 
215 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Each soul some sign of the infinite, of God ! 
Thus have I spoken ; and shall stand by that ; 
Against their cant of atheism, secure : 
The fulness of the central truth withal ! 
And what though this be pantheism : if true ? 
What though I risk mine individual self 
(And with that self all hope of after-death !) — 
As their taunt goes — if God alone in truth 
Be the truth, and there be no self beside ? 
And more : how lose a self if in some sense 
(No matter how, so long as truth it be) 
That self be infinite and find in God 
A loftier truth that yet is self the same ? 
I have decried this truth when logic-woven 
Of empty metaphysic subtlety 
Without firm faith-foundation ; I have mock'd 
The misty opium-dreamer ; scoff'd at him 
My first disciple from beyond the sea — 
While ever haughtily refusing help 
Proffered of physic-fact's stolidity. 
But now am come, fronting the physic-fact. 
Fearless to grapple with it, reconstruct 
That slough utilitarian to truth, 
If may be, builded of mine Emerson 
216 



CARLYLE 

His unforgotten Godhood of the soul ! 
I have examined soul and find it so ; 
Seem to myself assured of self-in-God. 
A thought to stand-by, utterly sincere. 

But why asseverate, asseverate. 
If nought be to gainsay within the soul ? 
If all the conscious cant, hypocrisy 
Be wholly theirs, be none at all of mine, 
Why vehement, why objurgatory so 
Through all these years of mine accomplishment, 
With irritation of internal fret 
And mental pain, as though some lurking rift 
*Twixt fact and faith tortured the frenzied brain ? 
Why is it that the question hath recurr'd 
To the same condemnation hour by hour — 
Ever the same — if there be not a doubt ; 
If detail of the faith (ay, whether worth 
Faith, fit to be believed !) never demands 
A re-adjudication, if to stay 
Still genuinely, vitally sincere ? 
The detail of my faith hath varied much — 
Half Calvin I, half Fichte ! — still sincere ? 
Am I alone * infallible ' of men 
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POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(Incapable, that, of falsity to self). 
Whilst doomed within me to deny as 'twere 
Myself, denying what I yet feel fact-like : 
Ignoring this their * evidence of fact ' 
Which so gets hold of me, for all my cry ; 
Which holding me compels me that I cry ? 
How may there be that everlasting Yea 
I prate of, an there be no Nay as real 
As in mine adolescence I too knew ? 
Were not my Yea of the soul just Fichte's Self, 
My Calvinism alway so bemock'd. 
Save something of denial by a world 
Be the world and give God a meaning still ? 
What if the evidence of fact hath truth 
And earth, as earth, be godless as they claim it ? 
Shall that destroy me ? Shall idealism 
Die vehement deploring phantoms lost ? 
Stay, put this case, that earth lies as they say 
Barren, and God a gas, and heaven a void. 
And soul some tubercle ! Shall I have fear 
That God and soul cannot by ev'n these false-truths 
Triumph and turn them but to truth the more ? 
'T were worst hypocrisy, self-sham and cant 
Longer to laugh their evidence to scorn 
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CARLYLE 

As hitherto. At least their full belief 
(Mistaken, certainly ?) is yet some fact 
For me to face. A world, of many men 
Half-one with God, believes there is no God : 
Within God's scheme there proves a place for such. 
Within my rede (as I am phase of God) 
Must prove the same place, proved as it shall please 
God to give value. — May earth be as godless ; 
And God yet of me and my faith be His ? 
A search for truth then, utterly sincere ! — 

And why so long postponed I to old-age 
This search for truth, if utterly truth-single 
At soul in my life's labor as I deem'd 
Of prophet, truth-seeker ? May it not be 
Perchance some love toward what most apeth truth 
(But is not save the self be very God 
And very worldless as by Berkeley's scheme), 
Zeal for conviction, worst unconscious-cant, 
Sincere-hypocrisy (subtlest demerit 
Of Satan's panoply !) that hath subdued me ? 
I doubt, then, that I truly have loved truth 
Despite much protestation. I have loved 
Sincerity, pre-requisite soul of truth 
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POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

But not truth's body, forgetful that men's faith 
Is measured also by the emblem of it 
(The Not-Self of that Fichte, and the *form 
* Of pure perception ' in the slang of Kant, 
Determinate-momenta of that Hegel, 
As the babble goes !) — sole warrant of the mind 
Contra mistake, crass insufficiency. 
Error against the laws of world-in-God. 
Granted God doth allow of varying merit, 
The less or more of truthful worth attain 'd, 
The achievement characteristic and unique, 
The stint of sight — each heart may be sincere 
In force of sheer belief and yet unworthy. 
(How self may be so — that is for research 
Of some far future soul, the final problem 
Of all soul's exercise in search of truth — 
The logic-law of error — I may not seek it !) 
What, thus, were the honest fool but fool-sincere, 
A fact of nature scantly valuable 
In furtherance of truth ? And I have praised him 
Through mine intemperance of outcry 'gainst 
Mere sham. I doubt me if a man may well 
(Even myself despite this hour's first fear !) 
Unto himself (the last appeal ?) be sham ; 

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CARLYLE 

But deem him mainly earnestness at heart 

In genuine effort to delude the world 

At worst, at best not to delude himself ; 

Even I at worst, ah, to myself sincere ! 

I had been thus far sham-like, fool-sincere. 

Incapable of answering with truth 

Unto their false-truth wherewith they deny 

God, immortality, that I approved 

Nigh any ignorance if but confident 

(Mine own admitted ignorance this day 

Of immortality, the lesson of it 

Illustrative as of some Fichtean scheme. 

Some Hegel's subtlety beyond mere dreams 

Of Emerson, of Coleridge and his crew. 

Found in the facts these modern men mistake — 

These Darwins, Huxleys, Spencers, and the rest 

For counterproof, and I till now ignored !), 

Nigh any brutal, raw effrontery — 

Of Friedrich, almost of Danton, Marat — 

Of mind or manners if with courage of 

Its brutishness ; and could not by my test 

Of practical conquest over force opposed 

(The right of might, due to might's truculence : 

The might of right not being competitive !) 

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POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

Have logically long discountenanced 
The physic-cohort. (It was but my Ruskin 
That warranted the counterclaim of * power 
* By virtue of more complex understanding ' 
And spiritual conclusion.) I felt free 
With arrogance of Calvinistic zeal, 
While yet confessing doctrines of God's ways 
With men which made men each some Absolute, 
To spurn contemptuous a fund of fact 
Rich to interpret continuity 
Within each individual self as source 
Of both eternities, rich to prove soul 
By metabolic impetus of will 
Ever evolving, rich for detail'd proof 
Of the ways of God-in-man which are the Hero 
And are my heart's religion. I thus forgetful 
How truth is half a doubt, half a dismay 
At that which truth's new being oversets 
(The God ex macUna of Calvin in me !), 
The truth and thing outworn : because the o'er- 

setting 
Destroys still truth and is that brutal fact 
Which very truth is not. Whence must a love 
For truth be sadness half, half-insincere 

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CARLYLE 

And saved thereby from being tyranny ! 
God is not ' in His heaven ' (yon Browning sings it 
For all his tragic musings !) save the soul 
Of man, regretful of Elysium lost, 
Be heaven — and how be heaven save as this earth 
Is freedom and omniscience, absolute power 
Unto each man whose insight of men all 
Yieldeth accommodation, compromise 
In practice, as by infinite interplay 
Of conscience — Fichte given body and hands 
By this despised (and rightly despicable 
In its own sordid dust-analysis) 
Material hypothesis — reborn 
As inward force, infinity of power 
In self-conatus — dream'd by mere Lamarck ! 
Whence must belief in immortality 
By soul's new proof derived out of the earth 
(Earth's continuity of constant change 
Precluding alteration beyond felt 
Identity of self within self's span) 
Be half a sadness for the faith outworn 
Of personal persistence after death — 
This personal infinity, once proven, 
Of each least conscious spirit in so far 
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POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As conscientious of the facts of soul 

About him — coextensive with his truth — 

Debarring any aftermath of death ; 

And leaving sad, regretful this belief 

In earth-borne godhood for the loss at best 

Of heaven-and-hell and God's machinery 

Of retribution or unending bliss. 

The retribution, bliss without an end, 

Are heroism as I feel it in me. 

The comprehensive rule of faith in self 

Avowing rights of self within all else 

As source of mutual duties. Truth is such. 

I clearly have inveigh'd (beyond best wont 
Of world's great truth-seekers) against untruth. 
And have been thus untrue unto myself 
In the sole way man may be thus untrue : 
Incapable of assimilating much 
Which dreary atheism (saved, re-born 
In the Teuton's mystery) now turns to mean. 
Could I but greatly retransform in me 
The false which yet in other minds or times 
Is as the truth (these doctrines, let us say. 
Of transmutation, teaching the loftier scheme 
224 



CARLYLE 

Of continuity as self-defining 

The conscious soul coterminous with all, 

Hence infinite ! ) I less had been sincere-like, 

May be, (well might I wax wiser by that !) 

But truthful more unto the universe 

Of men within me each of whom speaks truth 

And acts it as is in him : truthful most 

Unto divinity that each man is — 

Each comprehensive of the selves of all. 

Thus had I truliest been historian. 

As poet, not fantastic chronicler, 

By artistry (as one may some day tell 

My history !), each puppet speaking forth 

Reflective estimate of his own acts 

In terms of my best insight of acts all. 

Rather than act (as writ) a narrative 

Held up to censure by my private creed — 

He unenlighten'd in his own estate. 

(I ponder that and find that it is so.) 

Then had I seen that action least is finite. 

Most focus of the eternal by most conscience. 

Most gradual wisdom, than by that brute-born 

haste 
Of swift decision bred of ignorance 
225 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

As was the crass way of the cross 'd of old, 

As is the way now of the tyrannous, 

The self-assertive, not the self-contain'd ! 

Then had I offer 'd less a wail of protest, 

More the benign construction Goethe knew 

As god unto his spiritual realm ; 

More worshipping the truth intrinsically 

(And therefore worshipful as no mere hero), 

However overthrown and crush 'd by force 

Of crude sincerity ; and therefore more 

As great men are, fostering not deriding 

The weaker cause : myself a power among them. 

Chief optimist, upbuilder, constituter 

In spite of great, wise grief over things lost 

Which each fresh proof destroys. I have seen 

truth 
Destroyed and new truth ever self-destroy'd ; 
Have felt and made men feel the tragedy ; 
But ever as by that prevalence of might 
Irrational, for right no substitute 
Save by some stultification, by some juggle 
Of phrase to take the fact for proof of law 
(Withal mistaking the real moral-fact) ; 
Thus ever as dull protester (irony, 
226 



CARLYLE 

The tongue of impotent discontent !) perceiving 
Not that best protest comes by best constructing 
Advanceward of the times, not turning back. 
It may be that the meaning of the times 
Brings a belief in just this way achieved now 
(Despite the lawless Law of Darwin's creed) 
Of individual initiative 
(Not tyrannous dominance by force sincere ; 
Not purpose of some mob beyond the man !) 
Proven by comprehension, soul-conclusion 
Ensuant on the shown necessity ' 
Of each in every mutual influence. 
It may be that the petty point-by-point 
Of all their science (those benumbing norms — 
False metaphor for Mill's, for Spencer's dreams 
Of metaphysic systems self-disguised 
And therefore feebler, foolisher than most — 
Belittling man's best effort, every sweep 
And lift of an heart their theory denies) 
Opens, as now 1 find, a splendor-proof 
Of hyper-heroism, divinity, 
In this world-constitution, within each 
Its definition, miscall'd consequence. 
I '11 not inveigh against pettiest proofs 
227 



POEMS OF PERSONALITY 

(I catch me in contempt nevertheless, 
Maugre this hour's avow'd Catholicism ! ) 
Of utilization in the general scheme 
(I leave those sand-wastes to the Bentham-brood); 
But show the standard of utility 
(Synthetic source of value by insight 
Through sympathy, not competition with 
Desires and satisfactions of all men) 
Mainly this personal perception of 
Evaluation within every man — 
Not within all alike, but within each 
In sort by terms yet individualwise 
Distinctive, not less infinite thereby, 
Because, respective in their private kind 
And grade, conclusive. Something of this at heart 
I spake of several in whose half -success 
I found some warrant of divinity 
(Mahomet, Dante, Luther, and of him 
Misjudged by name of Cromwell) — them I loved 
And felt at one, contributors to use 
Upbuilt within my soul as theirs in furtherance 
Of ' God's will ' : rather, of that sympathy 
Which clothes increasingly our passion-frame 
With moderation as a garment, pity 
228 



CARLYLE 

And acquiescence unto other wills, 
By knowledge of their faith soul-absolute 
Conforming self unto its world of selves ; 
Each in its lonely sort a world by insight ! 

Then to the recognition, reconstruction ; 

To find it very helpful at the last 

Unto the old man ruthlessly bereaved : 

Their crazed material hypothesis — 

Toward God-in-the-world (not merely by example 

Through history, but) by continuity, 

By self-necessitation of world-knowledge 

Truth-cumulative in the temporal stream 

Enveloping, involving * to the end ' : 

By worldhood-needed such a knowledge shown 

Focus of both eternities ; some sign 

Of life immortal in and of itself 

As each is self — though all the world shall pass. 

Ah me ! but the bereavement : I alone ! 



229 



CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
U . S . A 



